Clear, bright, sunny mornings always remind me of those first few
delicate, unsure steps into a frightening, but exciting new world. It
was like waking after the apocalypse, a bright new dawn, a ray of light
piercing the darkness which surrounded me and lifting me free into a
future where happiness was possible and life was not always cruel and
unkind. Imagine those cinematic moments where the night has been
survived, where humanity has triumphed, where the good guys have made
it, and you're somewhere near the feelings which flooded through me in
those early days. But let me not get too far ahead of myself. To
experience the joy I felt, you must have a flavour of the darkness, and
I will take you there. Not for long, mind you, but I will give you a
flavour.
Strike one was the death of both of my parents. There was always a
family rumour that they'd been killed for money, or something equally
intriguing. I've never discovered any evidence to that effect, but it's
a rather romantic myth, isn't it? Oh, I know what you're thinking -
poor lad, alone in the world, an orphan, and so on. Honestly, at the
time I couldn't care less. I think I'd met my parents about three times
before they died, so it was hardly a terrible shock. At the age of
eight I had only ever known a succession of nannies, while mum and dad
continued to live the exotic party lifestyle they were unwilling to
alter in order to do something quite so mundane as raising their child.
No, the problem with their demise was not so much the loss of family as
the loss of equity. All those around me had expected young master
Zachary, on the death of his parents, to become comfortably well-off.
Not, it appeared, the case. In actual fact, rather than a huge fortune
I had been left a huge debt. My parents' assets were sold off to pay
those debts, and by the time their numerous creditors were satisfied,
there was very little left for me. Cue the end of expensive prep
schools, and the exit of the nanny, and the sudden realisation that
there really was very little in the world for me to hold on to.
I almost went into care. I was with a foster family for three days
before my father's older sister was finally traced, and persuaded to
take me in. It wasn't as though she particularly hated the idea of me
living with her, but we simply didn't know each other. She lived on the
south coast of the UK, surviving on what little she could earn as a
cleaner while desperately seeking her muse. An artist. I hardly knew
him to understand his character, but somehow I knew my father wouldn't
have approved, a suspicion which was quickly confirmed by my aunt.
"Oh, your dad and I never much got on," she said breezily, almost her
first words to me, "but I'm sure things will be different with you, eh?"
I was used to a certain way of living, surrounded by a certain type of
person. Aunt Jane was scatterbrained, flighty and forgetful. Not
neglectful per se, but certainly of an artistic disposition, and hardly
perfect parent material. That's not to say artists can't be great
parents, you understand. Just not Aunt Jane, at least in the mundane
'food on the table, clothes in the cupboard' kind of a way.
Strike two, returning to my misery, came three years later when, with a
bit of a start, I discovered that I really rather fancied one of the
young men who worked behind the counter in the local butcher's. That
came as a bit of a shock to my eleven year old self, when all is said
and done. By this time life with Aunt Jane was happily carrying on
without being particularly spectacular in any sense, but this sudden
realisation and all of the associated implications rather derailed the
train.
Of course I dealt with it in a mature fashion, immediately becoming
obsessed with the idea of getting into a girl's pants. Oh, I know, most
boys that age are desperately trying to get into someone's pants
anyway, but there was a certain mania to my outlook. I must have
determined that the only way to cure myself of my budding homosexuality
was to purge it with a whacking great dose of 'straight'. I wasn't that
successful, mind, even if I managed to get Theresa Simpson to let me
feel her up - my dick was so regrettably limp throughout the experience
that she ended up laughing when she saw it. She didn't tell on me,
though. Nice girl.
Strike three, and the ultimate knockout (quite literally), came about
nine months later when, upon finally revealing to someone that I
thought I might be a bit different, things went all too predictably
wrong. All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time. There
was a sense in the national media that homosexuality was, if not the
norm, at least not entirely the work of the devil. People were coming
out all over the place, and there was almost a bit of a trend to it.
And so I made the decision, one fateful Tuesday, to announce, in utmost
secrecy (well, it was still a bit of a risk, right?) to my best friend
in the entire world that I might prefer boys to girls.
I woke up two days later in hospital. I don't recall exactly what
happened, and only fractured reports of the truth have ever reached my
ears. It seemed to spread like wildfire, in the sense that not only was
the dispersal of the truth rapid, but it also inflamed all of those it
reached. I was confronted and set upon by a group of twenty or so lads,
including my former friend, who all saw it as their duty to protect
themselves from the faggot. I don't think it was meant to go that far,
but there really was a hint of something animalistic in the boys that
day. They beat me so badly that there is still a soft section in the
back of my skull.
Nothing positive was done, of course. Police interviewed various boys,
but no-one was saying anything, least of all the school, who wanted the
whole thing to go away as quickly as possible. They hung me out to dry
- I was branded a trouble-maker, a known problem child, and summarily
expelled for reasons which were never explained. A paper record from
the time simply says "Expelled for serious breach of school
regulations". Apparently being beaten to within an inch of my life was
a serious offence. Or perhaps I was expelled for being gay.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the reality was easy to see - I could
never return to that school. Nor to any in the area, because it was
well-known local gossip. Aunt Jane suffered for my lack of judgement,
too. Doors which had always been open to her suddenly closed. The
stench of homophobia settled over our little community, and before long
one truth became self-evident: we would have to move.
Aunt Jane should have hated me. She could have resented my very
existence, and right then I wouldn't have blamed her. It was my fault
after all. I didn't need to say anything, and it was my naivety which
led to our ostracism from a community she had lived in for years. But
she never once did so.
So, we packed up and left.
---
She gently reminded me, as I left for the first day of my new school,
that it was best not to say anything to anyone about a certain little
thing, a little thing of which we had not spoken since the day I
returned from hospital. That day, the first day of freedom after four
weeks of white-sheeted imprisonment, she had said,
"Is it true?"
I hadn't asked what. I knew what.
"Yes. Sorry."
She hugged me. "Never be sorry. Never."
Nothing more was said. And now here I was leaving for school again, a
new school, a fresh start, in a new town. Aunt Jane had sold her lovely
little seaside home and bought another, less lovely, slightly less
seaside home a hundred miles along the coast. She never said a thing
about it, but I knew how much it hurt her to leave the life she had
built. She was bright and breezy about the new start, but that simply
masked the pain she bore.
---
I had a meeting with the headmaster, Mr Clarke, first thing. He was a
kindly, middle-aged man who welcomed me into his office with a soft
'hello' and bade me sit. I still remember the chair, bottle green vinyl
on a swivel base, a chair built to adult proportions. It reminded me of
the Mastermind chair - not a great first impression! But he was a
kindly man, interested in what I had to say, not just going through the
motions of appearing to be interested because it was his job to do so.
We chatted about this and that, about my family past, about my current
situation, my academic record, the sports in which I enjoyed
participating. In fact, the conversation was so pleasant that when he
brought it around to more recent matters, I was caught completely off
guard.
"So, you were expelled from your last school. Why was that?"
I didn't know what to say. How was I meant to answer that question.
Aunt Jane had already warned me against speaking about the reasons, but
here I was being directly asked a question by the headmaster. Could I
lie to him? Would he know? I hesitated too long.
"It's OK, Zachary, if you don't want to talk about it you don't have
to. I learned what happened from a friend of mine who's on the board of
governors there, but I wanted to hear things in your own words."
I waited a little longer, and then somehow found the words.
"I... I said something I shouldn't of said, and I got beaten up."
"Yes, that was what I was told. Can I ask a very personal question, Zachary?"
I shrugged. I imagined he would ask anyway, regardless of my answer.
"Zachary, are you homosexual?"
I didn't have a clue how I should respond to that question, either.
Making the declaration of my budding sexuality in my last school had
led to the most dramatic possible consequences. I hadn't changed my
mind, either - this wasn't some 'phase'. But nor was I ready to go down
the 'out and proud' route. Again, it seemed I had hesitated too long.
Mr Clarke raised his hands.
"It's OK, you don't have to tell me anything, Zachary. Nor do you have
to be concerned that your classmates will trouble you. I honestly don't
care, as long as you feel as though you are happy to be here, and don't
feel threatened. It's a subject with which we as a school have had some
prior experience, with, thankfully, a positive outcome."
I didn't respond, and Mr Clarke seemed to sense that I wasn't going to.
"Right," he said, "That's probably all I need to see you about,
Zachary. Miss Templeton outside will show you around the school and get
you settled in."
I stood and, having rather uncertainly shaken his proffered hand, let
myself out of the office. I was white and shaking. Just as I had calmed
my breathing, waiting until Miss Templeton looked up rather than daring
to disturb her, the door opened behind me.
"Ah, Zachary, still here?" said Mr Clarke. "I forgot to say, if you
happen ever to cross paths with James McKinley, you might find him an
interesting person to talk to. Now, off you go."
The door closed again, and nervousness was joined by bewilderment in my rapidly growing gallery of unwanted emotions.
---
What Mr Clarke said intrigued me, for some reason. It was barely a seed
of an idea sown in my mind, and yet I became rather obsessed by it -
who the hell was James McKinley, and why would I want to talk to him?
I found my place in my class quite quickly, probably one of the
brighter kids, but not outstandingly so. I tried to make myself fairly
anonymous for the most part, and with the complicity of my classmates
it worked fairly well. They were a unit, a just-about-balanced corps of
boys and girls, and I was an interloper. I had no indication at the
time, but apparently it was well known that I had been expelled from my
last school, and it was rumoured that it was because I'd beaten someone
up really badly. No-one asked about the livid scars on my face and
forehead, or the fact that I was excused from PE lessons for the first
two terms.
No-one could tell me who James McKinley was, though.
---
I looked up from my homework and caught my aunt staring at me, a half smile on her face.
"What?"
The smile broadened.
"You're quite cute, aren't you, Zack? All those girls at your school are going to be disappointed, I'd say."
I scowled at her, whilst at the same time blushing furiously.
"Boys aren't meant to be cute, Aunt Jane, they're meant to be handsome."
"Well, I think cute is important. So, any 'handsome' boys at your new school?"
I blushed an even deeper red; I could feel my skin prickling. Aunt Jane
seemed quite at home with conversing about my sexuality, but I
certainly wasn't, not just yet. It was easier if I simply didn't think
about it. I didn't respond to her question.
"Sorry, Zack," she said after a few moments' silence. "I thought it
might make things easier if we just chatted about it like it's normal.
Look, I have a couple of friends who know what you're going through, I
think. If you like you could meet one of them."
I stared at her in horror. If I'd been able to express my feelings with
the language I now have at my disposal, I might have explained that I
wasn't just another gay guy, that they probably didn't know what I was
going through, that I didn't see myself that way, I wasn't some sort of
stereotype charity case. Oh, all sorts of things. But right then I was
simply shocked and repelled by the idea.
"I'm not.... I don't.... no," I stammered, then more forcefully, "no!"
Aunt Jane held up her hands to placate me.
"OK, sorry, I didn't realise it was such a touchy subject."
I groaned and picked up my books.
"I'm going to do my homework in my room."
---
I turned thirteen with none of the associated fanfare. I'd told Aunt
Jane that I wanted no fuss to be made, and she seemed to understand I
was quite serious. She complied with my wishes almost too fully.
My sexuality was a constant source of introspection for me at the time.
I was perpetually horny, as I think most boys are at that age, but the
things which intrigued other boys held no fascination for me. Not that
any of my compatriots were given any reason to think otherwise. Nearly
six months on from the beating I had managed to retreat firmly into the
closet and closed the door behind me - no-one was told a thing.
I had to get a fix somehow, though. Masturbation was fun up to a point,
but I needed more than my imagination to fuel my fantasies. I needed
something real. Most boys my age were turning to porno magazines for
their kicks, but the only subject matter anyone could get hold of was
soft-core and full of women only. Pictures of naked men in magazines of
the time were astonishingly rare, at a point in history where Mary
Whitehouse was still peddling her insidious faux moral crusade and
hiding her rampant homophobia behind a banner of 'protecting the kids'.
God forbid anyone saw an erect penis on paper or on film, for instance,
or they might become a serial rapist, or worse, gay. I like to think
things have moved on somewhat since then.
I couldn't see a way of tricking any of Aunt Jane's friends, even the
most openly gay ones, into showing me their stuff. Rumour has it that
at least one of them was such an exhibitionist that he would happily
have flashed me if I'd asked, but what thirteen year old boy is going
to ask an effective stranger to show them his dick? Never going to
happen. So instead I embarked on a far more dangerous course of action.
I had heard all the rumours about the gents' toilets at Cray Park - the
best advice was to stay well clear at all times, but if you absolutely
had to pee, don't go there after dark. I think I implicitly knew what I
was going to find when I ignored the warnings, and find it I did.
It was nearing dusk when I entered the toilet. It smelled disgusting,
unclean, the stench of stale urine pervading throughout. Unsure of what
to do, I walked nervously towards the urinals. The place was empty as
far as I could see, the dim light cast by a single bulb bolted to the
low ceiling casting plenty of shadows. Thankfully I had made the
decision to have a back-up plan, and as I stood there with my dick
sticking out through the fly of my jeans I let loose a healthy stream
of piss. I could simply have been a kid caught short.
I was just beginning to relax into it when I heard the outside door
creaking open, and heavy footfalls on the tiled floor. A man came into
view on my right, a pleasant looking middle aged guy. He could easily
have been one of my teachers with the look he had, and he gave me a
lopsided grin when I glanced over at him. I looked straight back ahead
of myself, mortified that he'd seen me looking around. But fascination
and a growing sense of sexual need forced my gaze over to where his
dick stood erect from the fly of his trousers.
He made no move to hide it from my eyes, just stood there openly
wanking, showing it off to me it seemed. I stared at it, my gaze frozen
for what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than seconds. I
looked up at his face and his eyes were firmly glued on my crotch, and
it was then I realised that he was wanking because he could see my limp
little dick. I panicked, and ran. Literally.
I sprinted all the way home, a fifteen minute walk for anyone not in a
hurry. I was there in no more than five. I bounded up the stairs, past
the startled form of my aunt, and flew into my room. I slammed the door
shut behind me, and flung myself down onto my bed. Instantly I burst
into tears, so full was I with a mixture of fear and self-loathing. It
was more than a thirteen year old boy should have to go through, should
have to feel about himself. That night I cried myself to sleep.
Aunt Jane asked me nothing of it in the morning, but gave me a warm and understanding smile when I feigned illness.
"I'll go and call the school. You just stay there today."
---
I got a summons to the headmaster's office the following week. It was
an official, typed letter on headed school notepaper, and was handed to
me by my teacher at morning registration, his expression grave. As I
scanned down the page I felt fear welling up inside, rising like a
tidal wave until it washed over me. I felt physically sick. What could
I have done to be in such trouble? The wording left a great deal to the
imagination, giving me no hint as to the possible cause for the
meeting. My head was already whirring with possibilities, the most
frightening being that my secret had been discovered and that I was to
be expelled again (for I considered that a real possibility), by the
time I had scanned to the bottom of the page and found a tiny little
scrawl in blue ink. It read "Don't worry! - E.L.T.".
The author of the added note I took to be Miss Templeton, the
headmaster's secretary, because she her signature on the headmaster's
behalf on the main body of the letter looked as though it might read
'Emma Templeton'. Her attempt to reassure me did little to calm my
nerves, however, which continued to build through the day. The meeting
was arranged for after school that very day, and so at lunchtime I
found a payphone and called my aunt, telling her that I would be home
late, only to discover that Miss Templeton had already done so.
The rest of the afternoon I spent thoroughly distracted, failing to pay
any attention to my lessons because my mind was occupied daydreaming
about the horrific fate which awaited me in the headmaster's office.
Come the end of lessons I was a bag of nerves, and those of my friends
I had told about the letter patted me on the back, showing solidarity
with the dead man walking. None would accept that I had no idea what I
had done wrong, and plenty of opinions were voiced about what secret I
might be hiding, but as I was about to discover none of them hit close
to the mark.
I wandered along the long, glass-walled corridor which due to a fluke
of architecture separated the offices from the main school building. A
pond, full of tall reeds and with a young willow at its edge lay to the
right, and to the left the view gave out over the school playing
fields. I stepped heavily, like a man condemned, taking my final walk
to the gallows. With each footfall the dread grew deeper in me, to the
point that I wondered if it would be possible for me to continue, but
by some superhuman effort I made it to the waiting room outside the
head's office, where Miss Templeton greeted me with a warm, motherly
smile and asked if I would like a glass of water. I refused, and took
my place waiting on the row of chairs which stood outside Mr Clarke's
inner office.
A few moments later, an older boy also arrived. He looked a little more
cheerful, and I wondered whether he was to be punished, too. He greeted
Miss Templeton respectfully, but also like an old associate, someone
with whom he had clearly spent a lot of time sitting in this room. I
wondered how much of a trouble-maker he must be. he sat down a couple
of chairs away from me, gave me a silent 'hi!' and a wave of his hand,
and then proceeded to ignore me.
Seconds ticked by on the large wall clock to our right. Each tick
seemed louder than the last, until the sound threatened to engulf me,
to drive me insane. I wanted to rip that clock down from the wall and
stamp on it repeatedly until it spilled its gears like blood on the
floor. I daydreamed about pulling it down and throwing it through the
plate glass window of the office into the pond, still visible beyond.
Just as the tension reached boiling point and I felt the legs in my
muscles begin to twitch unbidden, the door opened and there was Mr
Clarke, beaming at us as if out mere presence had made his day.
"Come in, boys, come in. Sorry to have kept you."
I rose mechanically and followed him into the room, now more confused
than ever. The other boy came, too, though he showed no signs if
distress. Mr Clarke turned to use and spoke,
"Don't bother sitting down, I won't keep you long. I just thought you
two ought to meet, maybe have a chat or something. Zachary McNaught,
this is James McKinley."
I turned woodenly to the older boy standing next to me. He looked about
fifteen or sixteen, maybe a fourth or fifth former. He gave me a wry
smile and extended a hand. I shook it, and felt for the first time in
my life a genuine shiver run down my spine at the touch of someone's
skin on my own. But I was too worked up by nerves to consider for a
moment what that might mean.
"Well, that's it, really," Mr Clarke said, his voice still light and
airy. "Mr McKinley, I'd like you to talk to Zachary about a few things.
I'm sure you can guess why I'm calling on your particular expertise,
and as you know you do owe me a favour or two."
James was smiling again, this time with the defeated look of someone
who is being forced to do something they would rather avoid.
"Of course, sir. I understand."
"Right, good. Off you go, then," Mr Clarke said, moving to open the door and usher us out.
---
We left the office together, though our destinations were, for now,
quite different. James was smiling ruefully and shaking his head.
"He treats me like a little pet project, you know," he said as we
walked along the corridor back toward the main school building. "Always
showing me off to people and getting me to do tricks."
"Um..." I said, speaking up for the first time, my curiosity finally overcoming my nervousness. "Why?"
"Can't you tell?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, I'm not very good at things like that, all in code and things."
He laughed. "Yeah, it was a bit like that, wasn't it? Like a secret spy
meeting or something. So you have no idea why he wanted us to meet?"
"No, nothing. He said when I started that I should talk to you, but
then no-one knew who you were, so I couldn't. And he didn't say why. Do
you like cricket? I said I liked cricket in the meeting we had."
James laughed again, this time genuinely amused. I could feel myself blushing furiously.
"Yeah, but I bat for the other team!"
I still had no idea what he was talking about. The euphemism meant nothing to me, gave me no further hint.
"You still don't get it, do you?" he asked. "Why did you get expelled from your last place?"
"I wasn't -" I began, but he cut across me.
"Everyone knows you got chucked out, mate, so there's no point trying to deny it. So, who did you beat up?"
I realised that there was little point hiding the truth any longer. And
besides, something about James' manner put me at ease; he was certainly
nicer than most fourth-formers.
"Me."
"What?"
"I got myself beaten up."
"What? That doesn't make any sense. Cut the bullshit, mate."
"I said something which got me beaten up. They said it was my fault and
that it was safer for me to not be there, and then they said I was
expelled for 'inviting violence' or something."
"I think you mean 'inciting'," he said, and then suddenly stopped in
the middle of the corridor. I carried on a few metres before noticing,
then stopped and turned to face him. He had the strangest look on his
face.
"Wait a minute. What did you say to them?"
I froze to the spot, unable to move. He advanced on me.
"You came out, didn't you? You told people you're gay."
I expected there to be anger in his face, but there was something else.
Pain. Pity, perhaps. Something else, too, something I couldn't read. By
now he was standing close in front of me. I couldn't move, couldn't
respond to his questions. I just stared at him, mute. His voice when he
next spoke was soft, quiet, and broken with emotion.
"They beat you up because you're gay, didn't they?"
Tears formed in the corners of his eyes and he wiped them out.
"Didn't they?" he repeated. "You poor kid."
I nodded only very slightly. His arms engulfed me, drew me into him,
crushed my face against his chest. I could feel the sobs racking his
body, and they triggered tears of my own. Thank God the school was
deserted.
We sat in the shade of an oak tree in the corner of the school
playgrounds, near where it met the fields beyond. The crumbling red
brick wall was still warm from when it had been in the sunlight
earlier, but now the great glowing orb had moved along its celestial
track a little, and no longer bothered this little patch of our world.
Tiny little red spiders scuttled back and forth over the surface of the
bricks, and in the tree above us a squirrel was industriously removing
acorns for later use. My feet dangled, not quite reaching the floor,
and I gently kicked my heels against the wall. There was near silence
around us, the other kids long since gone home - far in the distance a
lawnmower droned on, and there was the high-pitched chatter of birds
above our head in the canopy, but that was all. We had retreated here
to talk, at his request, though for the moment conversation had stalled.
James sat next to me with his eyes still reddened from his tears, and
looked out over the playground. I didn't know what to say to him - he
looked like he needed to hear something nice but I didn't know what
would help. I kept my mouth shut instead.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Zack," he said after what seemed like hours of silence. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. Sorry."
I kept my silence because I still wasn't sure what I could say.
"I suppose I ought to be honest with you, if you haven't got it
already. Zack, I'm gay too. I guess if you're here at the school for
long enough you'd find out anyway, but lots of the younger kids don't
really know. Or understand. It wasn't easy, but perhaps I didn't have
it as hard as you. For fuck's sake!" he suddenly shouted, pounding his
fist into the dirt at the base of the tree. "Why the fuck would they do
that to you? No, don't answer that. Don't answer that."
We lapsed into silence again. Eventually, though, a thought occurred to me.
"Did they beat you up, too?"
He laughed, but there was no humour in it.
"No, but you're not a million miles away from it."
He must have seen the puzzled look on my face, because he began to explain.
"Two years ago I had a best friend, Matt. We were really close, but not
boyfriends or anything. He was really nice to me, we'd been best
friends since we were really little. I used to think about him in a
naughty way sometimes, you know, how you think about people when you...
you know..."
I did know, and blushed furiously, looking down at the ground.
"Yeah," I said in a whisper.
"Anyway, I kind of thought of Matt like that sometimes, but I also just
liked him a lot. But then he got ill with leukaemia, and they said he
was going to die. I was gutted about it, and I went to see him when he
was in hospital one time. He was really ill and they said he might not
live much longer, so I figured it couldn't hurt to tell him what I was
feeling. He was lying there with his eyes closed and there was one of
those machines bleeping and everything. I started to speak to him, but
he just lay there, so I figured he was pretty out of it or something. I
just told him everything.
"Then I went home. My mum got a call the next day to say he died during
the night. When I went to the funeral, his mum came over and gave me
this piece of paper with my name on it. Matt wrote it to me before he
died. It just said 'I don't love you like that, sorry. But you're still
my best mate'."
James paused for a moment. His voice was cracking, tears visible again
in the corners of his eyes. He took a few deep breaths and looked away,
brushing the back of his hand across his eyes. When he spoke again his
voice was more stable.
"I got really messed up by him dying. I started getting really angry,
and they had to send me to this psychiatrist bloke. I was talking to
him, and he said I should write a diary about how I felt. He thought it
would make me feel better. So I started doing it, and I even stuck in
the note from Matt. Then for some stupid reason I brought it to school,
and when I got to the end of the day it was missing. I looked around
everywhere for it.
"Anyway, the next day I came in and I was walking across the playground
and all these kids were looking at me strangely, walking away from me,
or laughing. I didn't get it until I came round the corner and over
there," - he pointed to the far corner of the playground - "Marc
Williams, who's a complete wanker, was reading my diary out to
everyone. I just went mad. I ran at him and his friends held me away
while he just waved the book in my face.
"I don't remember a lot after that. Someone said I must have had a
blackout. Apparently I broke one of the boy's arms, and knocked the
other one out with my elbow, and then started on Marc. He's still not
right, can't see properly out of his left eye."
I stared open-mouthed at James.
"I know I shouldn't feel good about it," he said, smiling, "and
actually I feel pretty shit for hurting them like that, but after
hearing what happened to you I feel better. Maybe it's some kid of
justice."
"Did you get in lots of trouble?"
He grinned ruefully.
"Lots and lots. I nearly went to a sort of kids' prison, but Mr Clarke
was amazing, managed to get them to change their minds, promised them
that he would make sure I never did anything like that again. I'm on
some mad pills now, which calms me down, so I don't feel like hurting
anyone anymore."
I moved slightly away from him, and he noticed, laughing.
"Oh, shit, Zack, I was kidding! I'm not on drugs or anything! I never want to hurt anyone anyway, it was just that once."
He went to punch me on the shoulder, and then changed it into an arm-around-the-shoulder hug.
"It's OK, mate, I won't hurt you. Especially not you."
There was something in his voice I couldn't quite decipher. It wasn't
until much later that I worked out what it was. Right then all I could
think about was the feel of his arm around my shoulders.
---
I wandered home in a bit of a daze, feeling disconnected, feeling as
though there were a veil between me and the rest of the world.
Everything that had been said in the last couple of hours whirled
around my head, sending my thoughts flying off on a thousand different
tangents. I couldn't think logically, and couldn't get a handle on what
I was feeling.
"So, what was it about," Aunt Jane asked as I fell into a chair at the
kitchen table, dropping my bag to the floor next to me. For some reason
I didn't feel like talking about it, and so I lied.
"I mentioned to the headmaster that I liked cricket, so he wanted me to
meet the cricket coach and talk about trying for the team and stuff."
In fact, Mr Lescott, the games teacher, had taken me aside in PE one
day (since the damage had healed enough for me to take part) and
quickly made the assessment that I would fit straight into the team at
third or fourth in the batting order, and might even get a crack at the
school first team in a year or two. Thanks goodness I had hidden that
from my aunt.
"Ok, right," she said. She looked a little unconvinced, but there had
been an official call from school telling her I would be late home, and
she made no attempt to challenge my story. "So, are you going to play?"
I shrugged, knowing that I probably would.
"I think so. We'll see."
"And you're well enough for it?"
"Yup," I replied, nodding.
"Well, that's good. Maybe you'll make some good friends that way."
---
I saw him next in the playground the following day at lunch time. I
smiled at him, feeling myself blush for some reason, and he half raised
a hand in greeting, the corners of his lips curling slightly, but
nothing more than that passed between us. It was as if we both
understood that whatever conversations we might have in private, when
in school it was best to remain distant.
There seemed to be no such boundaries outside school, however, and as i
began my walk home, which was usually a solitary affair, I heard my
name being called and stopped and turned. It was James, and he sped up
slightly to catch me.
"Can I walk with you?" he asked.
"Um... sure, yeah. I thought you lived the other way, though," I replied, to which he offered a shrug.
"I can go this way, just takes a couple more minutes longer to cut across the fields at the back."
We began to walk, not talking but definitely in step with one another.
Then, slowly but surely, a conversation sprang up, started from some
chance conversation or other. We were off, chattering away, laughing
with each other. The journey flew by, and as I said goodbye to him and
turned up the path toward the house I was beaming to myself.
Aunt Jane was out until the early evening, according to the note on the
kitchen table. I knew I should have got straight on with my homework,
as I was meant to do as soon as I got home, but having the house to
myself was always an exciting prospect. At thirteen I was quite the
little nudist, as long as no-one could see, and I loved to run around
the house with not a stitch on, my hard little dick bouncing and waving
in front of me as I went.
I took full advantage, locking the door so I would have early warning
of Aunt Jane's return, and quickly stripping. Very leisurely, taking
full my time in my solitude, I walked around the house with a hand idly
toying with my dick. My chosen spot to complete the ritual on this
particular afternoon was the warm little reading nook which had been
created out of some dead space at the top of the stairs.
Sunlight spilled across the centre of my body as I lay with my head and
feet in the shade. As every boy does at that age I inspected myself,
checking for new hairs (there was only a scattering at that age, for I
was very much a late bloomer) and generally being pleased with my
little spike. I decided it looked nice, and I liked the way I could
peel my skin back and it would stay there, bunched behind the ridge. I
pulled at my sack, too, amused by the way it shrank and went even more
crinkly when I got a hard-on.
There was, however, only a certain degree of time-wasting I would allow
myself before the pressing need for orgasm overwhelmed my desire for
exploration. My hand moved quickly to its favoured position and I
closed my eyes to concentrate more clearly on the feelings. My mind
drifted to fantasy, and I dredged up my usual images - the guy I'd seen
in the showers at the swimming pool, his short, thick dick sticking out
from amongst water-straggled pubes; the boy I'd seen only holiday
running around naked on the beach; guiltily, the rather magnificent
erection of the man whose forwardness in the toilets in the park had
frightened me so badly. And, suddenly, something new. James' face. Oh
shit, James' face, smiling at me, and then in an instant I was there,
my balls firing precious, tiny droplets of almost clear cum onto my
body with astonishing force.
I ran naked to the bathroom, hoping the droplets would remain adhered
to me, and wiped myself clean with toilet paper. My dick, still hard as
a nail, looked up at me accusingly.
---
He began to walk home with me each day, and I began to enjoy it very
much. There was a sense that even had there not been the common bond of
our alternative sexuality that we might have been friends, had there
been any reason for us to have met. But, unspoken as it was, there was
that connection, there was something we shared. He knew something about
me which I hoped none of the other pupils at our school knew about. I
didn't consider for a second the thoughts people might harbour when
they saw us walking home together, the conclusions to which his
classmates might jump. They were aware of his sexuality if not
necessarily mine. I just enjoyed his friendship for what it was and
tried to ignore the growing sense that something much more significant
was happening to me.
Thoughts of him became a masturbatory staple. I imagined all sorts of
things which had no basis in reality - what he looked like naked, how
big he was, what it would feel like to have him suck me, and what it
would be like to suck him. The last surprised me, because though I knew
of blow-jobs the thought of a man giving one had, for some reason,
never occurred to me. It was something a woman did to a man, and that
was that. And yet I found myself imagining what it would feel like, and
taste like, and smell like. I smelled my own hand after I had
masturbated, and wondered if his dick would have the same scent.
But that wasn't all. I wondered what it would be like to hold his hand
as we walked down the road, how people would react. I wondered what it
would be like to kiss him. And, after the hug he had given me in the
school corridor with no-one else around, I wanted to know what it would
feel like to have his arms around me again.
Quite simply, I was one rather lovesick little puppy.
---
It was a Friday afternoon, and we were chattering away as usual as we approached the front gate of my house.
"Zack, before you go in..." he started, as I began to say goodbye.
"Yes?"
"Um... my brother, Tom's in a cricket match tomorrow. It's for the
county youth team. It's over at Cray's Park, you know, the cricket
pitch bit around the back. Want to go and watch?"
I had nothing better to do, but even if I had, I would have cancelled in a heartbeat.
"Really?"
He grinned at my enthusiasm.
"Yeah, if you want to."
"Yeah, that would be great!"
"Cool. My dad's going to take his car, so we'll pick you up. Don't know what time yet. Can I call you later and tell you?"
I nodded eagerly, and told him our number, which he wrote on one of his
exercise books. I watched him to the corner, where he disappeared with
a wave, and then practically skipped into the house.
---
I thrilled at the sound of his voice on the phone that night. I think
it was possibly the first time I'd ever had someone call just to speak
to me. The conversation was short and broken - we kept talking over
each other, and the excitement was plain to hear in our voices. By the
time I had replaced the receiver there were butterflies kicking up a
storm in my tummy, and a smile so broad on my face that it threatened
to unhinge the top of my head.
Morning could not come too soon.
---
I was ready painfully early, and paced around the house in excitement.
I'd catch Aunt Jane's eye every so often and she would smile
indulgently at me, as if she knew something I didn't. I suppose she
did, at that - she can't have failed to miss the signs of my
infatuation, even if I didn't realise I was showing it quite so
clearly. I had dressed in my favourite shorts and Global Hypercolour
t-shirt, and made a real effort with my hair. It was hardly subtle.
When the car finally arrived, only a matter of seconds after the agreed
time, I was fit to burst. I ran out, nearly forgetting the back of
snacks and drinks I had carefully assembled. James was getting out of
the back of his dad's rather flash looking Ford Sierra, and waved me
over. I crammed into the middle seat in the back, and buckled in next
to James' brother, who was a year older than him. James followed me
back in, crushing me between himself and his brother, our bodies
touching, albeit innocently, along the length of arms, hips and legs.
Even before I had finished being introduced to his mum and dad, who
were in the front, I had managed to attain a quite sensational erection.
It was hot and stuffy in the back, and not that comfortable, but by God
I never wished that journey to end. James' hand landed on my bare knee,
sending my head swimming, and I heard what sounded like a snort from
his brother. I looked across at the elder McKinley to find him looking
out of the window, but even with his face turned away I could see the
smirk there. In an act of defiance, the most I could muster, I pressed
my leg even harder against James', and felt his fingers squeeze my
knee. Oh, had I only stayed there a few minutes, with the friction of
my shorts on my awkwardly confined erection and his hand upon my leg, I
would surely have attained the ultimate pleasure.
---
My passion for cricket was only ever going to be improved by the events
of that day. My love for the game was strengthened by other feelings,
feelings so strong that I wonder now how I didn't pass out from the
force of them.
We found a spot, James, his mum and I, on the grass bank. His dad took
Tom off to join the team and get changed and help with certain
activities the nature of which I was entirely unable to define, but
which I've since learned involved lots of chatting to the other dad's
of the younger team members, and drinking beer. I'd got a strange,
slightly repulsed look from the man when we left the car, and I
wondered perhaps whether he didn't like me at all. In retrospect, I
knew that he hated my very existence, because he understood, even if I
did not at the time, that I represented the very real affirmation of
his son's deviant sexuality.
His mum was a different soul entirely, a much more accepting person.
She rather doted over James, and whilst she clearly understood just as
her husband did what I represented to him, she saw me differently, as
she might his first girlfriend. I caught her looking at me with a silly
smile on her face several times, and she would just turn away and blush.
The match? God knows. I spent the whole time talking to James, laughing
and joking around, generally having the best time I could remember
having. The day passed so quickly that I wondered where it had all
gone, and, tired though I doubtless was, my enthusiasm remained late
into the afternoon.
When I thought the day couldn't possibly be improved, I heard James ask
his mother if I could stay over for the night. he hadn't even asked me,
but that didn't seem to mind. He knew I wouldn't say no. He'd done
well, asking his mum, because even though she initially refused, he was
able to quickly change her mind. Acceptance wouldn't have been so
forthcoming had he asked his father, I imagine.
With the arrangements made, all that remained was to drop by my house,
inform my aunt that I was going to be absent overnight, and pick up
some pyjamas. Then straight back into that hot, stuffy seat between the
McKinley brothers, to a scowl from Tom and a warm smile from James, and
off to heaven for the night. I mean, his house... oh, you know what I
mean...
---
The funny thing was, as soon as we were through that front door and he
was showing me his room, I knew we were going to do something that
night, once everyone else had gone to bed. And it made me strangely
calm. I felt grown up, adult all of a sudden, able to understand what
was happening. I hadn't expected to feel that way. All day I was so
excited that I could barely eat, my tummy a constantly churning mass of
nerves. But now, as the acceptance dawned in me that we were definitely
going to be doing sex stuff, it seemed so much less frightening. Still
exciting, of course, but the excitement of anticipation, not the
nervous fear of the unknown.
The evening passed pleasantly enough, James' brother leaving fairly
early to meet friends - he was at an age where he could ride a scooter,
and relished his freedom. His dad spent the time looking uncomfortable,
but said nothing about the arrangement, and I rather enjoyed the power
I held over him, the ability to make him feel awkward in his own home.
In hindsight I can recognise that as the seed of the militant gay
activism which made me a rather bitter man in my early twenties.
We retired to bed early, and suddenly the calmness I had felt all
evening evaporated. Though we knew that something must happen in that
big double bed of his, still it wasn't something which was out in the
open. I went to the bathroom to change, and by the time I returned he
was under the covers. I got in on the far side of the bed, and there
existed between us a gap, a barrier. I had no clue what was to happen
next, and now those nerves were back in earnest.
We spoke in hushed tones, of the day, of things on TV, or at school.
Anything to avoid what was really going through our minds. The
conversation was strained, because our minds were elsewhere, and
eventually we just lapsed into silence. After a few moments of staring
at the ceiling, he turned to face me.
"Zack?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think about when you... when, well, you know... when you do it?"
"Oh! Oh. Well. I.... uh...."
"Sorry, you don't have to tell me, it's OK."
"No, it's cool. I just... I haven't ever talked about it before. Um, well I think about men."
The admission was so much stronger than any I had made before, because
unlike simply stating I was gay, it was in fact affirming it. My heart
pounded in my chest and my head swam. James laughed slightly, a nervous
chuckle.
"Me too!"
I laughed too, not because it was funny, but because talking about it
made me so thoroughly nervous that it was laughing or running away, and
I so desperately wanted to stay.
"Um, Zack. Um... there's something else. I think about someone else. Please don't be freaked out, OK?"
"OK."
"I.... I think about you sometimes."
It came out in a rush, as if he wanted to say it before he could stop
himself. A strange warmth flooded through me at his words. I felt
suddenly alive in a way I'd never before felt. I looked at him, his
eyes full of concern, and a wave of desire passed over me, washing away
any barriers to speaking my mind.
"Me, too. I mean, I think about you when I'm doing it."
He smiled at me, and then without saying another word he closed the
distance between us. His eyes met mine, our noses almost touching, and
then with a slight twist of his head he moved forward and kissed me. I
didn't know how to kiss, but I was quick to learn. He shifted further
across the bed and I could feel his hand snaking beneath the covers
towards my hip. Desperate for his touch, I turned toward him, and as I
did so his fingertips brushed along the length of me, closing around
and grabbing it in a fist through the cotton of my shorts.
I pulled away, gasping for air as he toyed with me. Squeezing my eyes
tightly shut, I savoured the feeling of the first time a lover had ever
touched me in that way.
"God, you're hard," he whispered as he continued to rub me up and down. "I am too. Want to feel it?"
My eyes flew open and I nodded, perhaps a little too eagerly. But, I
realised, I wanted nothing more in the world than to feel his hard dick
right then.
---
It was so thick, and warm, filled my hand so thoroughly and so
completely. So much bigger than my own, and yet it felt right; it felt
as though it were made for my fingers to curl around its girth, to feel
the intense heat radiating from within, to squeeze the spongy exterior
and feel the responsive firmness beneath. I marvelled in the easy way
the skin slipped back from the head, and in the length my hand could
travel down it, and back up. I wondered at the glistening pearl of
liquid which formed at its tip, and the groan of pleasure I could
elicit from James simply by smearing this slippery essence across the
gleaming purple skin with my thumb. I liked its scent; it smelled of
boy, and smelled like my own. I dared not touch my tongue to his flesh,
though. That still seemed a step too far, though something from within,
a voice of ever-growing volume was compelling me to try. I had heard
all the stories of how wonderful it would feel to receive, and I wanted
to give James that pleasure, and yet I was constrained by my fears of
what might happen when the thing was in my mouth. Would I choke? Would
he shoot in my mouth? No, it was too risky. So I sat and I watched,
legs tucked beneath me and my skinny little arm gently tugging up and
down.
When he asked me to, I sped up. With a frantic, panting explosion of
energy he came, firing globs of his sticky, lumpy semen all over his
tummy, my hand and even the grass upon which he lay. I smiled to
myself, knowing the gift I had given him. I was curiously satisfied
that he was satisfied, that he was happy, and that it was my doing. I
sat back and watched as the object of so much recent fascination
deflated before my eyes. Even when resting it seemed impossibly large
to my young eyes.
He pounced on me, pushing me down onto my back with a hand in my chest.
His other hand, free to do his dirty work, forced its way into the
elastic waistband of my shorts. It wormed its way within the confines
of my little-boy underpants, and grabbed at the tiny spike of flesh
which seemed suddenly so pathetic when compared to his own. His hand
turned round and suddenly pulled down, forcing shorts and pants below
my knees to tangle with my clumpy trainers. I tried to sit up and watch
what he was doing, but a firm hand in my chest prevented it. Submitting
willingly to whatever torture he may have in store, and turned into a
quivering, desirous wreck by his strong-handed approach, I lay back and
closed my eyes, letting my mind concentrate solely on the feelings he
induced.
Oh God, his lips. Those were his lips on my legs, and then my tummy,
while his hand held me. It didn't move up and down, his hand, but just
held my boyhood in a firm grasp, pulling it this way and that as he
kissed ever closer to my groin. Then the release, the cold rush of air
as his fingers let go, and then suddenly heat and wetness and suction -
oh God, the suction - and sensations my young body was incapable of
processing. Overload, total sexual overload, like fire burning in my
groin. My dick strained so hard with the pleasure that I thought it
must have broken, or at least been sprained. A strange, intense fizzing
started in the very tip of it but spread in a warm glow across my body
until I was suffused with it, overwhelmed by it, overtaken by it,
overcome. And then it hit; sharp, stabbing pleasure disguised as pain,
a jolt which sent my muscles into spasm. I cried out, unable to prevent
myself, begging him to make it stop. It was too much.
I sobbed, my tears soaking the shoulder of his t-shirt as he hugged my
head to him, consoling me, whispering in my ear that he was sorry, that
it would be OK. I felt such a fool for being such a baby, but he
consoled me and I let him do so, for the closeness it forged between
us. He hugged me. No-one hugged like he hugged me. There was pain in
the tip of my penis, but as the minutes passed pain faded to reveal its
true colours: unaccountably intense pleasure. I wanted it again, that
pain; I needed it, I ached for it. For God's sake I needed it again!
Sleep released me from its grasp. Memory, falteringly at first, came
with a sudden rush back to me, pinning me to the bed. I looked across.
James slept still, his naked form lying uncovered on the bed next to
me, dick soft across his hip, a few dark encrusted smears marring the
otherwise unblemished skin of his tummy. When I shifted I realised that
I, too, was naked beneath the covers.
I became instantly aroused. Feeling almost as if it were my right to do
so, I leaned over him and just observed it. I touched it, and it
twitched. I grabbed it and it swelled beneath my fingers, until it
stood proudly, so large that I wondered if I would ever be half the
size. Even at thirteen I was barely pushing three and a half inches,
and that was only if you included my foreskin. His must have been twice
that, and many times as thick. It didn't smell so nice now as it had
the day before.
He shifted in his sleep, but kept his eyes shut. My hand continued to
rove up and down, and I watched in delight as the foreskin peeled back,
came forward, peeled back, came forward. I could feel something inside
me egging me on, daring me to try what it would feel like in my mouth.
I leaned forward, urging myself to go through with it, building up the
courage until with a sudden rush I opened my mouth wide and plunged it
over the head of his dick.
It filled my mouth so utterly, so completely that I almost panicked.
But then I began to understand how to move my tongue around it, how to
relax my jaw so there was more room. Suddenly it felt so right to have
it there, so comfortable. I loved its bulk, its heat, the smoothness of
its skin. It was alive between my lips, twitching. Saltiness seeped
from the tip of it, and I learned that I loved the taste. And then, as
I bobbed my head up and down and sucked on it, as he had done to mine,
I felt it harden even further. The head was thrown into stark relief,
the ridge around it hardened and flared, and then salty, gooey warmness
was in my mouth.
I pulled back instinctively, letting what had entered my mouth fall
from it onto his belly, spitting the last of it out. The taste wasn't
abhorrent, but I couldn't stomach the thought of swallowing it, even
though I knew he had swallowed mine.
I looked up a his face, and he was watching me through hooded eyelids.
"I'm sorry," I said, though what it was I was apologising for I
couldn't tell you. Perhaps it was the innate feeling that I had invaded
his privacy. But he just smiled down at me and said,
"It's OK. Thank you. That was a nice way to wake up."
I moved up and lay my head on his shoulder, putting my arm over his
chest and my leg across his body, too late realising that it lay
directly in the damp pool of semen on his stomach.
"Ewww!" I said, and he laughed.
"Better clean that up," he said, pushing me to the side and getting up,
his still half-hard dick swaying about in front of his hips. He
returned to the bed with an old pair of boxers.
"Lie back and open your legs so I can wipe it off," he said with a
smirk on his face. His actions suited his words, and then he tossed the
boxers aside and began to stroke my legs, fingers growing ever closer
to my balls with each upwards pass. I pushed my hips up, desperate to
have him touch me, but he continued instead to tease me. Frustrated, I
leaned up, grabbing his head and dragging it down to my crotch, pushing
my dick into his face. He pursed his lips, refusing to open them, and I
laughed as I tried to force my way in. Eventually my stomach muscles
gave out and I collapsed back onto the bed, resigned to not getting my
dick sucked that morning.
James, finally seeing that the joke had gone too far, relented and
sucked me into the silky-smooth, hot, wet confines of his mouth. He
already understood how to get me off, and in moments I was feeling the
aching tingling in the tip of my dick, and the painful straining as it
pumped what it could into his mouth in rapid-fire volleys. There was so
little of it compared to his voluble emissions, and yet I felt guilty
that he was so happy to swallow it down.
We lay back down, though there was no romantic snuggling - we lay apart
on the bed, still naked, staring at the ceiling. We were content for
now, though I could feel a resurgence tickling in my groin as I thought
about what we had just done.
"I've never done that with another boy before," I admitted.
"Me neither!" he answered.
"But you knew what to do," I said.
"Don't tell anyone this, OK? I've seen a hard-core porno video."
Now, allow me to explain to you the impact of such a statement in
pre-internet days. I've already hinted at the moral standards of the
day, of the knee-jerk reaction of broadcasters to any furthermost of
what was seen as a thoroughly permissive society. To have seen a
hard-core pornographic movie at the tender age of fifteen was a proud
boast indeed. It was also something which would get a nice boy like
James into an awful lot of trouble. But right then, to me, it just
added a little to his hero status.
"Whoa! What was it like?"
He shrugged.
"Mostly it was lots of guys doing it with girls at the same time. They
did everything you can imagine. And some other things you wouldn't
believe."
"Like what?"
"Well, they did it up the bum for one. And some of the girls had it in the bum and their fanny at the same time."
"Up the bum? Why would they do that?"
He shrugged.
"Don't know. They seemed to like it, though. They kept asking the guys to do it harder."
All this talk was making me painfully stiff, and as I reached down to
squeeze and twist my little dick I noticed that James' had stirred
again. He, too, had glanced across.
"Getting horny again, mate?" he asked.
"Yeah. You are, too, though."
"Yeah, well... Hey, want me to stick it up your bum?"
He laughed, because he was kidding. Except, and here's the bit I could
never explain in a million years, suddenly I knew I wanted him to do
it. I actually wanted him to stick it up me. He looked across and saw
that I wasn't laughing.
"Oh shit, sorry mate, it was only meant to be a joke. I thought you'd laugh."
"No, it's fine, it was funny. It's just... I... no, forget it."
"No, go on. What were you going to say?"
I blushed furiously and shook my head. I couldn't tell him what I was
thinking, that I really did want to feel what it was like to have his
big dick pushing in me.
"OK, fine, don't worry about it. Want to wank off?"
That got my attention, and we sat up opposite each other, cross-legged,
and went at it. Out knees touched, but other than this subtle (and
thoroughly electrifying) touch, there was no contact. I went at mine,
and he, his. The sight of him pumping his hand up and down on his big
fat dick was enough to make me curl up in painfully strong orgasm in no
more than a couple of minutes. It was dry, because I'd already been
there in James' mouth once that morning, and he hardly did any better,
shooting a single droplet up into the air to splatter on my leg. We
fell back on the bed again, this time done for a good while.
---
It was late morning when I strolled into the house. My aunt looked up
from the drawing in which she had been absorbed and smiled at me.
"Did you have fun?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to respond without bursting into a fit of
giggling brought on by sheer excitement. I was full to bursting with
thoughts I could reveal to no-one, except, perhaps, and I thrilled at
the thought of the word, my boyfriend. My lips still tingled with the
last kiss he had given me, so brazenly out in the open, taking the risk
we might be seen just for the thrill it gave us. Oh, and the way my
dick responded to every thought of him! I promised it the sweetest
rapture if it would remain dormant for but a moment!
I struck out on a different tack entirely.
"Aunt Jane, do you have a spare notebook or something?"
"What kind of notebook. Drawing or writing?"
"Writing."
"Well, there's nothing in the house. Plenty of drawing ones, but
they're rather expensive and a waste for writing in. What are you
doing, starting a diary?"
I blushed - she'd hit the nail on the head.
"If you want that kind of book," she continued, assuming that she had
guessed correctly, "you'll need to go down to the bookshop on Harris
Street. I happen to know Mrs Kindel has opened up today for a special
visit by some horror writer or other, even though it's Sunday. I'm sure
she'll have something. Just tell her to put it on my account, she knows
who you are."
I dropped my bag in my room and wandered at a leisurely pace down to
the book shop. It was, indeed, packed to the gills with people all
vying for the attention of a rather harassed looking man, who sat
behind a table which bowed under the weight of a hundred or so hardback
copies of what I could only assume was his latest work. I managed to
squeeze my way past the crowd, who had occupied the front half of the
store, and wandered over to the corner which was given over to
stationary. I loved that corner - I had, and still have, an obsession
with notebooks of all types. I rifled through what was available,
searching for the one which would be just right. The problem was, when
I found it, it was way too much - in those days, nine pounds was a
relative fortune, even if the book was leather-bound and made of the
most beautifully textured paper. I was wistfully handling it when a
voice came from behind me.
"Lovely book, isn't it?"
It was Mrs Kindel, the elderly owner of the bookshop who, simply
because she loved books so much, had never quite given up being a
librarian in my school library as well as running her shop.
"Oh, yes," I agreed. "But I can't afford it. Nine pounds is way too much."
"Well, how much do you have to spend?"
"I don't know, really. It's meant to go on my aunt's account. But I didn't think I should spend that much."
She smiled at me. "No, you're probably right, that is a lot to spend on a notebook. What do you want it for? Starting a diary?"
What was it with middle-aged women seeing straight through me? I nodded my head almost mechanically.
"Let me have a look," she said, and I handed over the book.
"Ah, just as I thought!" she exclaimed, with a twinkle in her eye.
"Susan was meant to mark these down, and she must have forgotten. Now,
how much was it meant to be? Ah, that's right. Three pounds, I think."
Only much later did I understand the kindness Mrs Kindel had done me that day.
---
Back in my room I tried to work out how to begin writing a diary. I
supposed there must be entries for every day detailing what I had done
and what I was thinking, but though I knew this was a secret document,
I still couldn't bring myself to write down what James and I had done.
Instead, I decided I had to be neutral. The first entry read thus:
"Sunday 31st August:
Had great day with X. Think I'm in love. Didn't think it would be like
this. X is so cool! Very sexy. Did stuff lots. Want to do it again. Off
to do it now!"
And that's it. I put the book down and, with thoughts of James swimming in my mind, went to work on my already sore little dick.
---
Meeting in the playground was strange after all we had done that
weekend. There was a crackling tension between us, and words which
desperately wanted to be spoken but could not because of the people
around us. I wanted to just be with him more than anything else, but
the politics of the playground made that impossible. I was a second
year, he was a fourth year, and the strange limitations placed upon us
by an unspoken code meant that spending time together in this
environment was simply 'not allowed'.
We walked home together, though, as we always did, and chattered away
about this and that, lowering our voices to talk about sex stuff. It
was our favourite topic, of course, and we both had great difficulty in
hiding our obvious arousal from other pedestrians.
When we arrived at my house I was grateful to see my aunt's car
missing, meaning that we had at least a little time alone together.
James didn't hesitate to accept my invitation, and as soon as we were
sure the coast was clear he pushed me backwards onto my bed and knelt
in front of me, pulling down my school trousers and blue jockeys so
that he could slowly and lovingly fellate me. I returned the favour
passionately as he stood in front of me, his knees trembling with
excitement as, with hands on my head, he pumped in and out of my mouth,
setting the rhythm. Knowing that I wouldn't feel comfortable swallowing
his load, he pulled out in time to send it splattering across my chest
and into my naked lap while I watched his jumping, spitting monster
with abject fascination.
Each day it became our routine to make each other orgasm at least once
in the confines of my bedroom, becoming so bold as to do so even when
my aunt was in, greeting her as casually as we could before racing
upstairs to relieve the tension we had been stoking in each other's
bellies the whole way home. She must have known, of course, but said
nothing of it. Perhaps she was at least glad I wasn't getting some girl
knocked up.
It was a mark of how comfortable I felt in the house that I was willing
to ask my aunt if James could stay over the following Saturday night,
using my stay at his house as a lever. But there was no need, for my
aunt unhesitatingly agreed, and then proceeded the next day to shock me
further by suggesting that she might herself be out late, or indeed all
night, as she had a date.
I began to understand, even in my youthful ignorance, why she was so
accepting of James and I - she had, herself, found someone whom she
might come to care for, and she understood the feelings I was having.
We sat down at the dinner table on the Thursday evening, and suddenly,
for the first time it became possible to talk openly and freely.
"So, who is it then?" I asked, the reference none too obscure.
"Shouldn't I be doing the interrogating?" Aunt Jane replied, though
there was a twinkle in her eye which suggested she was joking. "No,
fair's fair, I suppose, and you did ask first. He's another artist from
the gallery where I'm showing at the moment. He's a Russian, and his
name is Yevgeny. He's been living in England for about six years."
I was slightly taken aback - the Cold War was extinct, of course, and
relations with Russia were certainly improving, but the Russians were
still not our best friends back then. There was still a little of the
old prejudice in me, it seemed, and Aunt Jane noticed immediately.
"Oh, come on, Zachary, you can't be too surprised. After all, you're dating some old man."
My eyes flew wide in shock. Adults weren't supposed to talk to kids like that, were they?
"He's not that old! He's only fifteen."
And that's when it hit me quite what I had just said. I had, for the
first time, out loud, confirmed to my aunt what we both knew had been
going on secretly in the background. And, I think, it confirmed
something to me: James was, even if we'd never said the words to each
other, my first boyfriend.
We sat in silence for about fifteen or twenty seconds, and then from
the sheer relief of a tension unbound we burst into laughter. Proper,
uncontrollable, belly-aching laughter. When finally, after several
aborted attempts we had controlled our giggles, we sat and looked at
each other over the table. She reached out across the wooden surface
and took my hand in her own, gently squeezing. In her eyes was a depth
of love and pity I had never before seen.
"It'll be OK, Zack. I'll make sure it's OK this time."
Without asking my consent, she got up and went to the sideboard, and
returned with a wine glass to match her own. She poured me a deep glass
from the bottle of red on the table.
"I think you're man enough to have a drink with your meal now."
I went to bed with my head spinning with thoughts, emotions and not a little drunkenness.
---
Aunt Jane was just leaving the house when James was turning up on
Saturday night. They met in the driveway, and exchanged a few words.
When he came through the open door, he said,
"You know, that aunt of yours is pretty cool."
"What did she say?"
He grinned and shook his head.
"I can't tell you that. But she's cool."
"Fine, I'll make you tell me!" I said, pouncing on him and dragging him
to the ground, trying to get him into some sort of wrestling hold. I
didn't have the strength to master him, but he supplicated anyway and
lay beneath me, gazing up into my triumphal face.
"You're still not getting it out of me," he said, and we both dissolved into fits of laughter at his unintended double-entendre.
"Not even if you put it in me?" I asked, still laughing. But the
laughter died quickly away on both sides. I was sat astride his chest
and began to slide down until my backside was over his crotch. He was,
as I was, already hard, and I settled my bum on the stiff, thick rod
beneath the fabric of his tracksuit trousers, thrilling at the feel of
it there. He flexed it and I gasped as a sudden jolt of pleasure ran
through me at the swelling between my cheeks.
"Would you let me?" he asked, voice broken with nervous excitement. My
head swam. I felt dizzy with anticipation of what I was about to say.
"Yeah..." I breathed, no louder than the quietest whisper.
---
He seemed like a giant above me, his nervously smiling face starkly
outlined against the bright light on the ceiling behind his head. He
was on all fours above me, knees between my spread legs, hands planted
on the bed either side of my shoulders. We were naked, except, for some
reason, our socks. My limp dick lay shrivelled on my lower belly, my
balls drawn up in a tack sack beneath, the skin prickling. I looked
down the length of his body to where the thick rod jutted from his
thick mat of dark pubes, its length glistening with cooking oil, the
only lubricant we could find. He knew somehow, perhaps from the film
he'd seen, that something like it would be needed. His fingers had
already pushed into me, spreading the stuff on the inside. We decided
it might be good to get me used to something smaller, but even his
fingers had felt uncomfortable. But wonderful, too, and that's why I
hadn't back out.
He leant down and kissed me, and then one arm disappeared from beside
me on the bed, reaching down between our bodies. I drew my legs up
instinctively, and as he lowered himself over me I felt the blunt tip
of it running along the crease of my backside. I gasped at the contact,
and he smiled down at me, running it back and forth until I was
wriggling my hips beneath him. Then he stopped and just held it still,
looking down between our bodies to make sure he had it in the right
place. I felt a dull pressure, and then suddenly the sensation of
something massive intruding into my body.
I gasped and clenched my teeth, but held his shoulders and wrapped my
legs around his torso, digging my heels into his backside, urging him
forward. It did hurt, oh God it hurt, but at the same time I
desperately needed it. There was no pleasure, but a fulfilment I
couldn't describe, and that made any pain I felt pale into
insignificance. He pushed until I felt I might die from the intrusion,
and then stopped. I looked down and was dismayed to see him only part
way inside.
"I don't think I can fit it all in," I whispered to him, nervous that
he would think me an insufficiently able lover. But he smiled down, and
there was genuine affection in his eyes.
"It doesn't all have to go in, you know."
I nodded, and then closed my eyes as I felt him pull out and re-enter.
Long, painful minutes passed as he withdrew and pushed hard into me
once more. I wondered if it would ever become easier, if I would ever
be able to let him have sex with me properly. But I realised that
something was beginning to happen. I was beginning to grow looser, and
his strokes easier, and, I realised as I looked down between us, deeper.
He thrust and thrust above me, growing ever more urgent in his
movements, eyes tight shut, a look of concentration on his face as he
ploughed into me rhythmically. He began to sweat. His breath came in
short gasps. His hips slapped against my own, his penetration of me
complete. I could feel it plunging deep inside my bowels at each
thrust, until with a shudder it grew thick in my ravaged passage,
stretching it to its very limits, and I felt the twitching of him as he
came.
He collapsed, exhausted on the bed beside me, hand snaking across my
shoulders to roll me towards him so that he could smother my face with
kisses.
I lay in his embrace, too exhausted and abused to feel anything but a deep desire to turn back the clock and change my mind.
---
I awoke two hours later. He was gone, but I could hear the bath
running. It seemed strange to me that he would feel comfortable enough
in my house to take a bath, and in the middle of the evening, too. It
was half past eight.
He wandered back into the room and looked down at me. There was
something in his look, something different to the lust he had shown me
before. He helped me up out of the bed, and only then did I realise how
shaky my legs were. He lowered me into the steaming water of the bath
when I was unable to do so myself, and then sat on the edge as the
water soothed parts of me I didn't know could ache.
"Um, Zack..." he started uncertainly. I barely heard his timid whisper
through the fog which had descended over my senses. I blearily opened
my eyes and tried to focus on him.
"Yeah?" I croaked.
"Are you OK?"
I nodded very slightly.
"Hurts, though."
"Yeah, I thought it would. Sorry... Uh, there's something I should tell you."
"'kay."
"I didn't learn any of that stuff from a porno movie. When I was about
ten I had a friend called Max. His uncle used to do all this stuff with
him, and Max told me about it once. He used to hate it, and eventually
his uncle got thrown in jail for it. But I knew about it all because of
him. I don't know why I didn't tell you that before."
I just lay with my eyes closed and thought about what he had said.
"Did you know it would hurt?" I asked eventually.
"Yeah. Sorry."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I really wanted to do it to you. Sorry, I understand if you hate me. I shouldn't have done it."
I didn't have the energy to tell him that I wanted him to do it, that
the regret I had felt straight afterwards had morphed into a desire to
feel him in me again. How could I explain the desire I felt to repeat
the act again, and again, and again, even though it would hurt? I
sensed rather than saw him rising to leave.
"Please, don't go," I whispered, laying a damp hand on his leg, feeling
goosebumps rise beneath my touch. He paused, and sat back down.
"I thought you would want me to leave," he said. I shook my head.
"No, stay, please. Help me out of the bath. I want you to hug me until I fall asleep."
He pulled me from the water, and then he dried me, and dressed me as
one would a helpless child. Then he lay me down in my bed and spooned
up behind me, the delicious warmth of his body held along the length of
my own, the soft tube of flesh which pressed against my bottom a
welcome reminder of the passion we had shared, now given way to a
gentle, loving embrace.
As I slowly drifted into slumber, I thought I heard him whisper
something to me. I asked him to repeat it, for I had missed both words
and meaning. He shifted slightly, and I felt the warmth of his breath
on my ear as he whispered to me,
"I love you."
I grabbed his arm, squeezed it tightly about me and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Certain things will fundamentally change the way you view the world,
though perhaps at the time you might not realise to quite what extent
they do so. James' breath in my face in the morning disgusted me in a
way I hadn't expected. It was a foul stench which even when I wriggled
free of his overbearing, lumbering embrace still filled my nostrils. I
ran to the bathroom, grabbing my toothbrush and manically brushing my
teeth until the clean taste of mint was all that I could sense. I sat
down on the edge of the bath, feeling the pain of my damaged behind,
and began to cry.
I didn't let him see me crying, because then I would have had to
explain it, and I couldn't do that, not even to myself. I had no idea
why the tears came, no idea why I loathed him so much that morning,
though looking back on it and thinking, it was because I realised that
I didn't love him, and after what we had done I either had to love him
or feel the diametrically opposite emotion. I couldn't go back to
falling in love with him, couldn't be half way committed. And that's
what I was, before he fucked me.
It's easy to see this now. It's easy to look back with all the
prejudice of an adult mind and assign meaning to my feelings, to apply
a filter of sense to them. At the time, though, I had no such
understanding, no such capability of reasoning why I felt the way I
did. All I knew was that something was wrong, and I hated James.
He understood it, too, when he awoke, lumbering into the living room
where I was watching TV. I sensed his grotesque, over-sized form before
I saw it, and the sight of it offended me. He was huge, brutish, hairy,
smelly. He was everything I was not. He was an ape, I an elf. Even at
the time, though I couldn't express it in so many words, I understood
that while I loved his personality, I didn't love his body, and that
was too much for our relationship to bear. I simply didn't fancy him,
not in the shallow, immature way which seemed to matter so much. As an
adult I am in the fortunate position of being able to overlook such
minor considerations and love the man inside the body, but as a horny
teenager, no such considerations entered my mind.
I wanted something else, and I resented the fact that he had invaded my
body. I still loved his personality, his smile as he greeted me, but he
was a big, lumbering, over-loving oath - despite the fact that he had
had his penis inside me, I didn't want his arm around me. It was casual
intimacy, and because I didn't love him, I didn't want it. Perversely,
some part of me still wanted to feel him moving within me, but not
because I wanted James, but because (and it would take years to admit
this to myself) I simply enjoyed being fucked.
To go into all of the details of the rest of that day even now, many
years later, is difficult, both because what I can remember makes me
look like a right little shit, which is never nice to admit, and
because in fact I've blocked a lot out of my memory. I suppose the key
outcomes of the whole day were that by the end of it James wasn't
speaking to me, and my aunt was similarly disposed. My life was in
ruins, and I was utterly alone. Let's see if I can piece together a
little of what happened.
I ignored James when he tried to sit with me on the sofa. He thought it
was a game at first, I recall, but then realised when I continued to
ignore him that something was up. He assumed it was something to do
with the fact that we'd had sex, but he thought I blamed him for the
physical pain that it had caused me. Actually, I was dying inside
because I didn't feel any more for him than I did. The first boy who
had ever done that to me, and I found myself thinking that in fact he
was a little repulsive. Not, in fact, my type at all. And I blamed him
for that, not myself, as I should have done.
We argued. I remember fights starting about nothing at all and ending
with shouting at each other. Eventually he left, unable to stay in the
house while I slowly lost it. My aunt returned later, having stayed out
overnight, and she got an earful, too. She tried to ask what had
happened, even made some suggestions. She jumped to the right
conclusion straight away, at least regarding the fact of our physical
union, and grilled me and scolded me and told me how damned stupid the
whole thing was. I hated her for saying it out loud, for emphasising my
mistake, for not understanding and simply being on my side. But why
should she have been on my side? I was being a little bitch.
James came back later, and we spoke, and I tried to explain it, but the
only conclusion we could come to was that I couldn't see him any more,
that I regretted what we had done. He tried to apologise and I shouted
at him and told him to leave, and told him he better not dare apologise
to me ever again. He left without another word. My aunt tried to calm
me again, and I shouted at her again, too, and eventually she told me
in no uncertain terms what she thought of me, before slamming the door
of the house and leaving in a cloud of tyre smoke, probably for
Yvgeny's house.
---
I woke utterly unprepared for the school week, and unable to face
James. My aunt was nowhere to be seen, and though I briefly
contemplated bunking off because there was no-one to force me to go, I
dressed in my uniform anyway, and made my own lunch, and went simply
because not going was likely to lead to more trouble than I felt able
to cope with.
He was there. He saw me, and I, him. For only a second our eyes met,
and then parted, and I felt a wrench in my soul. He was a part of my
world, so much a part of my world, all of it maybe, and suddenly he was
gone. It was my fault, and the pain in his eyes was my doing, and
nothing I could say now was going to make him feel any better, or me
any less wretched. Everything I felt now, all the self pity and
loathing which filled my heart, was my doing and my doing alone. If I
was to stand alone in that playground all day, with the rain pouring
down and soaking me to the bone, then so be it, and I would have no-one
to blame but myself.
I spent my time alone.
---
I grew used to loneliness. James had found the embrace of his friends
again, at least those who understood. I hated him for it at the time,
for some reason, probably because I was too immature to properly
analyse my feelings and blame myself for the situation. But I returned
to my self, to the solitary existence I had 'enjoyed' before we met. I
half expected Mr Clarke to interfere - I saw him watching me one day,
chin cupped in his hand, an unreadable expression on his face. But he
made no move to approach me, to question my well-being.
At least my aunt forgave me, thank God. Without her support I would
have grown even more morose than I was, but somehow she understood. She
even made me go fishing with Yvgeny, something I dreaded before I went,
and didn't much enjoy the first time, but appreciated afterwards in
ways I didn't quite realise. It instilled a life-long passion in me for
angling, and kick-started a love affair with the Russian nation which
persists to this day. It became a ritual to go fishing with him, and as
much as he expressed such emotions he seemed to enjoy my company, too.
It filled the hole in my life left by James' departure, and the
wonderful thing was that I didn't have to speak. In the whole time we
went fishing together I spoke only a handful of words, content to
listen to him lecturing about fishing, or about his motherland, or
politics or history, all of it in a thick, warm accent. I didn't fancy
him, either, and it was refreshing to spend time around another male
without any of those kinds of thoughts entering my mind.
---
What kick-started me out of this phase of general hatred of the world
was my libido. Rarely held in check even in my darkest moments, it was
piqued one day when a new family moved into the house next door to my
aunt's. The place had lain empty for several years, apparently, though
recent months had seen a hive of activity as various trades appeared
and carried out all sorts of modifications. The last white van had
barely pulled away around the corner when the moving lorry arrived,
followed by a boxy, white Volvo estate car, which duly disgorged a
young family - mum, dad and two kids, a boy and a girl, both a couple
of years younger than myself.
My first reaction was an odd one - my young eye noticed something:
these were rather well groomed people. The house had been renovated in
nice style, and their furniture looked like really solid old stuff, not
rickety IKEA self-builds. They were, I realised, "well-off", the kind
of people I had known when my parents were alive and I went to
expensive prep schools. Oh yes, it's easy to look back and feel
disgusted at how shallow I was, but that's how I felt. I wanted to know
these people, because at last I would be able to identify with someone.
Something else followed this initial flood of avarice, too. Something a
little more earthy, more real. I realised that I rather fancied the
boy, in the heart-in-your-mouth sort of way I hadn't, I realised,
fancied James. He was tall and thin - lithe, perhaps - with fair hair
which was dark at the roots and hung down over his head in a shaggy
mop. I could see the points of his shoulder blades beneath the soft
fabric of his orange t-shirt when he had his back to me. He was nicely
tanned, too, which offset his hair colour even more. I couldn't quite
tell at the distance between us, but he might have had blue eyes, too.
He was perfect to me.
And strangely I found his sister alluring, too. She was simply a
slightly more feminine looking version of her brother - dress her in
his clothes and you might even confuse the two of them, save for the
fact that her hair was, unlike her brother's, well tamed. For the first
time in my life I had a gentle stirring in the seat of my pants for a
girl. I spied on her and her brother as they helped unpack the
furniture, and got off on the illicit nature of my observation, wanking
into my hand behind the curtain which concealed my presence.
I watched them again that afternoon, in the dying light of the sun,
playing with a frisbee in their back garden. They were so alike in
their excruciatingly graceful movements that I decided they must be
twins, though the girl looked a little smaller. I felt strangely alive
spying on them, making up little stories in my mind, and I grew horny,
too, like an old pervert spying on the neighbour's kids and wanking off
behind the curtains.
---
I met them the next day, a Saturday. They were outside again, though
this time they were, in theory, meant to be helping take boxes from the
house and store them in the garage. Instead they were messing around
and avoiding doing any work. My aunt had sent me down to the shop to
buy a paper, ostensibly to get me out of the house and stop me moping
around all day.
As I drew level with their front garden the boy looked up from the
tickle-torture he was applying to his uncontrollably giggling sister
and gave me a shy smile, and a soft 'hi', with his hand raised little a
little American Indian. I returned the salute with a silent smile and
went on my way, resisting the urge to turn around and look at them. I
was some way away before I heard their horsing around continue.
They were gone when I passed again ten minutes later, but that hardly
mattered. I needed time alone, time with the thoughts which had come
unbidden to my mind as I walked to the newsagent. Even in those days my
imagination was well-enough developed to build, with very little
encouragement, quite lurid fantasies about anyone I found attractive,
and my experience with James gave me plenty of material with which to
furnish my fertile mind. On the short walk to and from the shop, I had
already imagined the boy in several positions I could be fairly sure he
had no idea were even possible, and even found myself dreaming about
how it must feel to slide into the pink little hole at the centre of
his sister's body.
I took my depraved little self off to my room, and masturbated whilst
watching for them out of the curtain, feeling immense satisfaction and
not a little guilt as I sprayed watery cum out of my fist and into an
old pair of boxers.
---
I thought about the boy constantly, to the point of distraction.
Further spying requirements led me to hunt out a pair of binoculars,
and at my aunt's direction I found an old but powerful pair in the
attic in a dusty of box of my granddad's possessions. This vastly
improved my ability to spy, but at the expense of making me a permanent
recluse, using the view my bedroom had over their garden as a
substitute for television. My aunt must have wondered, or perhaps even
known what I was up to, but said nothing.
The most wonderful thing, of course, was to discover that the boy's
bedroom was opposite mine, separated by the divide between our houses.
He was too shy to leave the curtains open as he readied himself for
bed, but during the day I was able to observe him doing his homework,
and sometimes reading on his bed. The tiniest hint of seeing something
sexual would set my heart hammering in my chest, and one hand rummaging
in my crotch whilst the other desperately tried to hold the binoculars
steady.
Easily recalled is probably the first time that I realised that the
boy, whose name I still hadn't learnt, was a sexual being. Oh, of
course I had fantasised about what might lie between those thighs, and
how I might use it, but I had no confirmation that he had yet
discovered its non-urinary uses until one autumn afternoon. With the
light rapidly failing outside, he was lying on his bed reading a
magazine, one of those aimed at teenage boys which effectively contains
all but soft-core pornography. It was probably a little old for him,
but I wasn't about to march over there and point that out; besides, who
was I to be a moral arbiter? I watched him as he read, watched as he
rearranged the magazine so that he could hold it with one hand, and saw
with a slight sense of disbelief at my own luck the other hand sneak
down inside his tracksuit trousers.
Its gentle movement in his crotch could be mistaken for nothing but
masturbation, and as he fondled himself I became ever more worked up,
shaking with excitement at seeing this very private act. His movements
became bolder, and for a few seconds I thought it possible that, even
with the door to his room open a fraction he might pull down the front
of his trousers and give himself room to work. His hips shifted
slightly as his hand moved more rapidly, the gentle fizz clearly
building along the shaft of his boyhood, his toes curling each time a
little burst of pleasure radiated out from his groin.
Just as I thought he might come at any moment, something must have
disturbed him, because he practically leaped into a sitting position,
hid the magazine and grabbed one of his schoolbooks, sitting up
cross-legged in bed as his sister appeared at the doorway and said
something to him. He nodded in reply, and she left, but it was already
too late for his waning erection. He pulled the front of his tracksuit
out from his waist and peered within, but there was to be no more eyes
candy for me. With a quick grab and squeeze he deflated his little lump
the rest of the way, then hopped down from the bed and disappeared from
the room.
I couldn't get the image of him wanking out of my mind. I became even
more obsessed than ever with watching that window, desperate to see
something more. Each evening he would come into the room having just
showered, in only a towel, and each evening, without fail, I would be
disappointed as he drew shut the curtains. The slightest chink of light
passing between the curtains was a lift to my spirits, but each time my
hopes would be dashed as I could see nothing at all between them.
This had to end at some point. I couldn't carry on spending my evenings
watching him. Here I was, a thirteen year old boy, so driven by lust
for a neighbour he hadn't even properly met, a boy no less, and one who
was clearly younger than himself by an amount significant enough to
matter, that I spent every evening watching through my binoculars.
Disgusted with myself one Friday night, lying back on my bed with my
pants around my knees and still cooling ejaculate dripping off the
backs of my knuckles, I resolved to do something about it.
---
A plan was required. Unfortunately, the one I came up with was
absolutely rubbish, though at the time I think I thought it was rather
good. I'd noticed the boy's wardrobe consisted of little more than one
football strip after another, and he was often to be spied in their
back garden, kicking a ball around as if he desperately needed a friend
to play with. Clearly, he was more of a normal boy than I, and enjoyed
playing football. This, then, would be my route to meeting him. Which
posed a little bit of a problem, as I hadn't played in a number of
years, and hadn't been very good when I had tried. Somehow, though,
this didn't seem to pose too much of a problem to my mind - I would
simply (ha!) walk over to his house one day and ask if he wanted a
kick-about.
Except that I discovered it wasn't so easy. I'd been so wrapped up in
my little fantasy that when I determined that I would actually
implement my plan, I could not follow through. I had become so obsessed
with this boy, so withdrawn from normal life, that I hardly remembered
how to go about approaching him. I sat one morning on the edge of my
bed, staring at my reflection in the long mirror on the back of the
door, melodramatically imagining myself as some sort of alcoholic or
drug addict in a movie, admitting my addiction to myself before I
admitted it to my friends and family. Except there could only be my
introspective admission, because I certainly couldn't tell another soul
what I had been up to in that room.
Emerging that morning was like waking from a dream. Suddenly I realised
quite how much time I had been spending with my binoculars, and quite
how isolated I had become. I was a thirteen year old boy, and most of
my time was spent alone in my room, thinking of doing unspeakable
things to other boys, or rather one boy in particular. Even with my
limited capacity for introspection I realised that this was not right.
So, even if I wasn't going to be brave enough to talk to the boy, I
should at least get out and do something. It was a Sunday, and my aunt
was still mooching around in her dressing gown, so there was no chance
she'd already made the walk to get the paper. To her surprise I offered
to get it for her, and moments later had actually left the house to do
something other than catch the bus to school.
What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?
Certainly not a man, I, so a mouse, then. Whatever I might be
considered, my plan to talk to the boy was fragile and futile, and
ultimately unnecessary, for he did all the hard work, or at least was
supported only slightly by the hand of fate. Or the foot, you might say.
As I walked past the house, the boy's football bounced out in front of
me and into the road. It had flown clean down the side path from the
back garden, and was followed by its owner in short order, looking as
heart-rendingly cute as ever. I vowed to myself that something should
happen, and lo, here was my chance! So very easy after all, this human
interaction. I stooped to retrieve the errant item, and lifted into my
hands, feeling utterly awkward all of a sudden. Such an alien object. I
handed it to him, and received a smile in return.
"Thanks," he said. And then, "You could've just kicked it back to me, you know."
I chuckled slightly, more than was necessary, but at a volume entirely commensurate with how nervous I felt.
"Yeah, but that would have been a disaster," I said, and then
immediately cursed myself for revealing so much, and by doing so
scuppering the barely-afloat hull of my plan.
"How come?" he asked, his gorgeous face tilted to the side. I would
come to discover that he always leaned his head over when asking a
question, like an inquisitive little owl. Utterly endearing.
"I can't play football to save my life."
Well, I'd already fucked my plan, might as well abandon any pretence now.
"Everyone can play football," he said with a giggle.
"Not me. Not one little bit."
"OK, then I'll teach you."
Oh my life, it's happened. It's actually happened. Run, little boy,
run. Don't you know what danger you're in? Don't you know the perverted
thirteen year old who's been spying on you wants to get into your
pants, and you're playing right into his hands? Save yourself!
"Um, OK, yeah. That would be good. I have to get the paper for my aunt first, but then I'm free all day."
"Cool. Just come round the back, I'll be in our garden. I'm Jack, by the way," he said, holding out a thin, elfin hand.
"Zack," I replied, taking it in mine, finding it curiously limp. We
both giggled because our names rhymed, and that's the kind of thing you
find funny at that age, when you're both nervous.
I almost ran to the newsagent and back, and having changed into a pair
of shorts and a t-shirt, raced round to Jack's house. My aunt was in
the kitchen as I passed, and raised an eyebrow at my sudden change of
attire, but said nothing else. Jack smiled broadly when I entered the
garden, and immediately kicked the ball to me, and, over the course of
the next hour or so I managed to prove quite how thoroughly inept I
was. Jack was a patient teacher, though, and I gloried in the closeness
of him as he came to show me what to do, positioning my legs and hips
with his hands. I fought my libido and failed, and hoped he didn't
notice the unnatural bulge in the front of my shorts. At least, if he
did notice it, he didn't say anything. By the time I had to leave - his
family were off out for the afternoon - I was hot and sweaty, and above
all else alive. I actually felt alive. I must have floated back to my
house.
My aunt intercepted me as I gulped down a glass of orange squash.
"Making friends at last, then?" she said. It should have been a cause
for celebration, but there was an edge to her voice which suggested
something darker beneath.
"Yeah. And playing outdoors, too!" I said, my face beaming.
She sighed and looked at me, something approaching pity in her eyes.
"Just be careful, Zack, OK? Be careful."
And she left the room before I could ask her what the hell she meant.
Be careful of what? Jack wasn't going to do anything to me, so what did
I have to be afraid of?
---
The knock on the door came that evening. Alone in the house - my aunt
was out with Yvgeny - I answered it, annoyed at the intrusion into my
daydreaming about... well, you know. There stood Jack's dad, a handsome
man and a looming presence in the doorway. We'd never been formally
introduced, but he certainly knew who I was.
"Is your aunt in, Zack?"
"Um, no. No, she's out. Can I -"
"Good," he said, interrupting me and barging past into the house.
"Shut the door," he continued, and stalked off toward the kitchen. I
followed like an obedient puppy, scared to death of the man.
"Look, I'll keep this short. Stay the fuck away from my son, alright?
I've got nothing against you doing whatever it is you poofters do in
your own home, but you stay the hell away from my Jack. I'm not having
you influencing him. Understand?"
I stood there speechless, my mouth opening and closing, but nothing coming out.
"I'll take that as a yes, then. Good."
And he left.
I crumpled to the floor, utterly deflated. Sobs racked my body, and I
cried silently, tears streaming from my eyes. I don't know how long I
was there on the floor, but my aunt and Yvgeny found me staring into
space. She tried to get through to me, but nothing would breach that
barrier; I had retreated.
---
It was half term, a week without school. I spent it alone in my room.
Sometimes I would take a short trip to the toilet, or to the kitchen to
get food, but always I returned to my little cocoon. I sought
desperately for answers. Why had this happened to me? Was I being
punished for how I'd behaved toward to James? Or for my thoughts about
Jack? Perhaps this was God's revenge on me for having done what I
already had, for being who I was. And how had Jack's dad known? It
wasn't that common knowledge, was it?
I looked out of my window one day, and there he was, cutting a lonely,
dejected figure in his garden, kicking a ball about. He turned and
looked at me, and smiled, raising a hand in a small wave, and then
darting his eyes toward his house, as if afraid of being seen making
contact with me. That answered one question, at least - he, too, had
been warned not to play with me, as I had been warned off playing with
him. Strangely, I was relieved - we were both in the same boat, and
hopefully he didn't hold a grudge against me for ignoring him. By the
time I'd waved back he was already looking in the other direction.
My aunt asked why I wasn't playing with my new friend, but I couldn't
tell her what had happened. I was ashamed, as if I had a disgusting
disease which shouldn't be mentioned. I gave her no alternative answer,
and she jumped to conclusions. I made no effort to rebuff her rebuke
for having frightened the boy off. Instead I accepted it, the
sacrificial lamb, because I had worked out by now that I surely
deserved everything which came my way. It was simply the cross I had to
bear for my mortal sins.
Darkness replaced light, depression forced out happiness.
---
A letter landed on the doormat, simply addressed 'Zack'. Hand
delivered, but in the middle of the night, because my aunt found it
first thing the next morning, and invaded my room to pass it on, as
well as taking the opportunity to complain about my lack of activity. I
sat and listened to the lecture, and made no complaints. She was right
to lecture me, though not for the reasons I supposed.
I waited until she was certainly gone before opening it. My eyes
flicked downward and my heart jumped into my mouth when I read the name
'Jack'. I have it to this day, so I can tell you verbatim what it said:
Dear Zack,
I hope this doesn't get you in trouble! My dad said I wasn't to play
with you any more, but he wouldn't tell me why. Do you know why? I
think it's rubbish. I like playing with you. I think we should still
play, but keep it a secret. If you still want to be my friend, put a
letter in the apple tree between our gardens tonight.
From
Jack
Other than repairing a little of his broken spelling and grammar, that's exactly what he sent.
Oh, sweet rapture to read those words! How my heart soared! I felt as
if the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. I rushed to
the window, hoping to get a glimpse of him, maybe to pass on that I had
received his message. But the only person out in the garden was his
mum, putting out some washing, and there was no sign of Jack or his
sister in the house, at least through the windows I could see.
I sat down immediately to pen my reply, though the secret agent part of
my mind told me I'd have to wait for darkness to deliver it to the
named location, and at this time of year that would be very late
indeed. Still, I threw wide the curtains and sat down at my desk, found
some paper and a pen, and set to work.
Of course, it had to be the ideal letter, its tone gauged perfectly - I
wanted to appear enthusiastic, but not overly so. I didn't want to do
what my aunt assumed I already had, and scare him away. That's why I
eventually ran out of paper and had to go and find some more. Some
hours later, I finally had a note I was happy with; I'd love to tell
you what it said, but that's one I don't have. I can't imagine it was a
literary epic, but I carefully and lovingly folded it into four and
labelled it 'Jack'.
I paced, I sat, I paced again. I almost ripped it up and started again,
but no, it was good enough, good enough. What was I expecting the
letter to do? After all, I was simply confirming that I agreed to our
secret friendship. I was placing too much import on this simple little
thing. I sat, and I paced, and I tried to read but couldn't, tried to
find something else to do but couldn't. My aunt tried to talk to me but
I wasn't interested. She wasn't my friend at the moment. I distracted
myself for a few moments with photos of my parents, but that could not
be endured. I tried reading, again; still couldn't.
Darkness fell all too slowly, but by half past nine I judged it dark
enough to risk putting the letter in the tree. I snuck outside through
the kitchen, trying not to disturb my aunt, who was watching TV in the
living room - the last thing I needed was her sticking her nose in. It
was a warm evening, the air close. For some reason, even though the
gardens were in all-consuming darkness, I felt the need for stealth,
and so I ran in a crouch below the line of the hedge which separated
our gardens, down to the apple tree whose boughs graced us both with
fruit. There, in a hollow which seemed perfect for the job, I deposited
my note. As I stealthily crept back to the house and up to my room, my
heart hammered so fast that the world swam in front of my eyes.
I thought to try to alert Jack in some way, to tell him the note was
there. A subtle sign in my window, perhaps? Would he understand if I
made a little picture of an apple and stuck it to the glass? Or perhaps
I could just wait there until he went to his room. His room, of course!
It would already be the time of the evening when he retired to his room
to get ready for bed. I'd often watched him until he drew his curtains
before undressing, always thwarted by his modesty. Perhaps he would be
there tonight, but as I looked out of my window there was only
darkness. Determined to wait in case he came to bed late, I turned off
the light in my room (to kill its reflection on the inside of my
window) and sat down to wait.
Ten minutes later, as I was beginning to give in to boredom and
fantasising, the light flicked on in his room, and there was Jack. He
turned round to shout through the door, possibly downstairs where his
parents would be. Then he closed the door and came over to the
curtains, pulling them shut. My chance had gone - he was out of sight
before I could reach my light to turn it on and alert him to my
presence. I sat and stared at the closed curtains for a minute, annoyed
with myself for not moving more quickly.
Then, something out of the ordinary happened. The curtains split for a
moment, and there was Jack, opening the top window to let some air in;
it was a rather muggy evening, after all. Again, I was too slow
reacting to get his attention, but those thoughts were pushed hard into
the back of my mind when Jack, who was normally very careful about his
privacy, left the curtains open a foot wide and retreated into his
room. It made sense to leave a gap for a breeze to pass through, but it
had also granted me a perfect view of the lower half of his bed. My
heart began to race once more, and adrenaline flooded my body, setting
me shaking. What followed will for ever be burned into my mind, perhaps
more so than anything else which happened with Jack - I wasn't meant to
see what I did, and that adds another dimension to the dull reality.
He reappeared after a few moments and was totally, fully, shockingly
naked. I realised then that nothing would ever come close to that view.
I knew that however it happened I would have to have him. I doubled
over as the excitement of the moment made my stomach cramp. Frantic
with desire, I pushed down my jeans, desperately trying to keep my eyes
on the view. He stood there for a moment, as if posing, as if giving me
long enough to store the memory for ever, though he couldn't have known
I was watching. Then he knelt down and fished under his bed for
something, pulling out a white book. I wondered only for a moment what
it could be, but then I saw the front cover and all was revealed - even
over this distance I knew what the book was, because I had a copy
myself, and recognised the front cover. It was called "You and Your
Body", and was a wonderfully explicit sex education book for young
teens which somehow made it past the censors on the basis of being
educational. I, too, had spent hours alone in private with that book,
and I prayed he as about to enjoy it in the same way I had.
He lay back on his bed, giving me the view from navel to feet. His
little penis, a floppy white thing, fell across his hip. His left hand
drifted down to play with it and it quickly bobbed and rose, bouncing
with his pulse, until it stood firmly erect; it pointed to his chin. It
was a slim, smooth tube, rising from an unblemished groin. His balls
were pulled up tight in a pink-tinged scrotum beneath, and he pulled at
the pliable skin, which had the effect of dragging the hood down over
the head of his spike until about half was showing. It quivered in its
hardness when he let go of his sack. I had no idea which pages of the
book he was reading, but they were having the desired effect.
His masturbation was slow at first, rolling and pinching at his member,
half-heartedly raising pleasure from his boyhood, but making no serious
effort to bring himself off. He would slowly peel back his foreskin to
expose his engorged, shiny helmet, then roll it back over, then pinch
the tip of it and stretch it as far as he could off the end. This went
on for some minutes, his toes sometimes curling and his stomach
occasionally clenching when a jolt of pleasure radiated out from his
groin. Then, he must have found a particularly enjoyable page (I
wondered if it was the same as my own favourite) and the serious work
of building to orgasm began.
His legs stretched until the muscles quivered, then relaxed, stretched
and relaxed, as with fingers and thumb he rapidly shuffled the skin off
his head and over again, off and over, back and forth, building to a
blur. Legs stretched, and relaxed. Toes curled, stomach clenched and
legs jumped up, and relaxed. Tensed, relaxed, tensed, relaxed, faster,
faster, until legs went rigid, back arched, hips pushed up into the
air, fist grasped the little spike and crushed it until the knuckles
were white, and he held it, on shoulder blades and heels until the very
peak passed and he collapsed onto the bed, hips still wriggling and
writhing, pinching the head of his deflating boyhood as tension
drained. Stomach rising and falling rapidly with his panting, and
glistening with sweat in the light from his bedside lamp. A squeeze of
his over-sensitive member and the legs jerked, toes curled. Sitting up,
checking for wetness, finding none, sighing visibly and then collapsing
back onto the bed without the book, which lay open on the very page I'd
brought to my mind's eye.
I retreated to bed, head spinning, jeans still around mid thigh, my
body drenched with sweat and a spray of semen. How I wanted to lift
myself up and open my own window to let a cool breeze through, but
could not summon the energy.
I awoke at five in the morning, with the first grey light of morning
coming through the still-open curtains. Was that a noise outside? I was
naked from the waist down now, my clothes discarded unconsciously in
the night, so I shuffled to the window on my knees and looked out. No
sign of life, but there, dark against the shimmering silver dew on
their back lawn was a set of footprints, to and from the apple tree.
He had the note.
If the wait to deliver my note was painful, the anticipation of Jack's
response was altogether a new variety of torture. In his day long
absence (precipitated by his bastard father deciding to do some
parenting for once and take them out for the day), I ran through every
possible scenario in my mind, from the worst to the implausible best.
In the nightmare version of reality, Jack's dad found the letter I'd
sent back to him and stormed around to my house, beating me until I
could take no more and passed out. In the happy, thoroughly unrealistic
daydreams, Jack realised that he was gay and tentatively admitted it to
me in his next missive, and from there everything spiralled into one
long, debauched orgy in my room. I cleaned the droplets from my stomach
and tried to find something else to occupy my mind; Yvgeny was not
around, but I grabbed my fishing gear anyway and took the bus to the
nearest decent spot, and spent the afternoon missing almost every
strike and being oddly happy about it.
Dusk was falling as I returned to the house. My aunt, who had found my
note about going fishing on her return from work came and gave me a big
hug, crushing me close to her.
"I'm so glad you got out and did something," she said, kissing me on
the cheek. I'm not sure even now that I understand why she was quite so
pleased, but perhaps it was just a sign of how far into my depressed
loner roll I'd really sunk.
"Yeah, well..." I said, and didn't finish the sentence. I took my gear
to the utility room to wash it down, as Yvgeny taught me. As I stared
at the water spiralling down the plughole, my mind filled with thoughts
of Jack, I heard their car pulling into their drive. I finished as
quickly as I could and rushed upstairs.
In the rapidly falling gloom I saw the light go on in Jack's room. He
was carrying a plastic shopping back with the Lego logo emblazoned
across the front, filled with a chunky-looking box. He pulled it out
and laid it on the bed, and with no little jealousy I saw him open the
box of what was clearly a very impressive Technics set; the truck and
trailer, maybe? I'd been very keen on Lego before my parents died,
though since their assets had been seized, which included just about
all of my possessions, I'd not played with a piece. Perhaps I was a
little old at thirteen to still be interested, but perhaps not.
Jack was still slightly in awe of his gift. I watched as he eagerly
pulled out the instructions and read through them. I remembered the
feeling of doing so, the pleasure of drawn out anticipation, the almost
masochistic denial of gratification. Given the opportunity, I would
have analysed every last diagram in the book, and then carefully
arranged all of the parts, and only then begun the slow process of
building the kit, pressing each piece into place with a sense of the
utmost relish.
He placed the instruction booklet reverentially back onto the bed, and
stood. On stealthy feet he made his way to his bedroom door and peered
out, looking this way and that, and, apparently satisfied with what he
saw he closed the door. My heart leapt into my mouth and my mind raced
at the possibilities this act represented, but his secrecy was related
to something else altogether. He went to the table where I'd often seen
him doing his homework, and pulled a sheet of paper out of the draw,
then rose and took down a book from his shelf, pulling something from
between the pages. He unfolded the latter and smoothed it out on the
desk, and I twigged that it must have been the note I sent to him.
He set to writing a response. Occasionally he would glance my way, but
my bedroom was in darkness and I knew he could not see me watching him.
He was a careful, slow writer, taking his time over every sentence. It
warmed my heart to think he took so much care over the note to me, as
if he, too, were nervous that it came across the right way. In no
version of reality could he possibly be as nervous as I was, especially
not for the same reasons, but perhaps this friendship was important to
him. I couldn't imagine a boy like Jack having trouble finding friends,
so maybe it was just his determination to defy his father.
By the time I'd come out of my private musings he was done. He
carefully folded the note, and mine, and placed them both in the book
before returning to his shelf. His secret task done he left the room,
switching off the light as he went.
---
Morning came bright and crisp and cold, and dewy. I went on bare feet
to the tree, anticipation blocking the unpleasant sensation of the
cold, wet grass beneath my feet. I glanced across at their house, but
it was dormant, quiet, asleep. As anyone sensible would be in this
murky half-light. A white rectangle of paper was my reward, slightly
damp-feeling, cold.
Zack (it read),
I'm really glad you want to be friends too. We have to keep it secret
from my dad. I heard him saying stuff about you to my mum. He wasn't
very nice, sorry. I have to ask you about what he said, but not in this
letter. I want to ask you yourself. I'm going to tell my mum I'm going
to play football, but do you want to sneak off and go to the woods
instead? If you do, put something up in your window and I'll meet you
down at the rec at 10.
If you have changed your mind that is okay too.
From,
Jack
---
I collapsed back onto my bed. I'd read the letter a dozen times, just
to see if I'd missed anything, and my Rubik's Cube was sitting in the
window; my sign. My emotions were mixed - there was the building
sensation of butterflies, the anticipation of seeing Jack and going
into the woods to play. I understood the draw of the place, but I'd
never been in.
Then, overlying those positive emotions was the sick feeling of knowing
I was being gossiped about behind my back, of knowing that Jack's dad
had been speaking ill of me, and that at least part of it had reached
Jack's ears. I cared far more for his opinion than that of his father,
yet it pained me to know that suspicion followed me around, as if I
were some sort of criminal, as if people should be warned about me, and
warned off. I couldn't stop the feeling of nausea it brought on, and
refused breakfast when my aunt offered.
Ten o'clock couldn't come round fast enough, though I convinced myself
to wait just a little longer, so as not to appear over-eager. Then,
when I looked at my watch and discovered it was three minutes to, and
there was a five minute walk ahead of me, I panicked and rushed out of
the door.
Jack was waiting there, and gave me a little wave and a shy smile.
"Thought you weren't coming," he said, the relief apparent in his voice.
"Yeah, sorry. So, what do you want to do?"
"There's a place in the woods with a rope swing. Want to go there?"
I shrugged, but accepted. It seemed a little juvenile, but then Jack
was a couple of years younger than me. As we walked he chattered away
about this and that. My initial nervousness evaporated as the minutes
passed, until we were having an enthusiastic conversation, laughing
more often than not. It was easy, and comfortable, and the happiest I'd
been since James and I were together.
The rope swing, despite my initial scepticism, turned out to be more
fun than I would have imagined. We took turns flying out over a dried
out gully, its sides thick with moss-covered, crawling tree roots. A
magical place to spend the day, with a cute boy who I fancied the heck
out of.
We explored the woods afterwards. No-one else was there as far as we
could tell, so we took liberties, like pissing off the side of a high
path into the leaves of the tree below, seeing who could fire furthest.
I took guilty pleasure in seeing what little I could of Jack's
treasures, and when he caught me looking he grinned and stole a glance
at mine. Of course he just messing around, still in the dick comparing
stage of his life, not the lusting-after-an-innocent-morsel-of-flesh
voyeurism I was practising. It took all my strength to hold back from
reaching out and touching the prize I had so desperately sought, and by
the time we were done my hands were shaking with the adrenaline which
had flooded my body.
"Yours is really big," he said, grinning. I shrugged.
"I'm older than you," I replied. "Yours will start getting bigger soon."
"You reckon?" he asked, pulling on his foreskin and stretching it out. "It's pretty small."
"Oh, I don't know," I said, not really thinking what I was saying, "I think it's nice."
He gave me a strange look - questioning, almost, rather than disgusted
- and put his away. I stood mortified for a moment longer, then snapped
out of it and also tucked mine back in my shorts.
The spell was broken, and we returned to being just two mates messing
about in the woods, and before we knew it darkness was beginning to
fall. We split up at the edge of the woods and I took a longer way home
than he did. By the time I slipped through the door and into my kitchen
it was almost dark. My head was full of thoughts of him, my heart with
the soaring feelings of nascent love, and my loins with fire at the
memories of his perfectly formed little willy. And, floating above it
all, threatening to overwhelm my emotions, was the pact we had made to
meet the next day and do it all over again.
---
"Zack, what does being a poof mean?" he asked as we walked along. It
was an innocent question, one borne of naivety, rather than an
intention to cause offence.
"Is that what your dad was calling me?"
He nodded. "A 'fucking poof', that's what he said."
I sighed. I knew this would come up eventually. He'd even warned me in
his letter that it might. But there was no escaping the truth of who I
was. I could lie to him, but I was tired of lies and concealment. If he
couldn't handle who I was, then our friendship was doomed anyway, so
why keep it from him any longer?
"It means I'm gay," I said, and when that didn't register with him
(remember, this was a more innocent time), I said, "It means I fancy
boys instead of girls."
His eyes flew wide. "Oh!" he said, the shock clear on his face. In his
innocence he made no attempt to hide it, and strangely I was thankful
to him for that. "Isn't that a bit icky?"
I had to laugh at the absurdity of the question.
"What?" he asked, looking a little offended.
"Well, put it this way," I replied, "I don't think it's icky. I think it's great."
"Oh. Is that why you said my willy is nice?"
I nodded.
"Oh, right. Isn't it bad to be gay? Like against the law or something?"
"No, it's not illegal. Some people think it should be. Some people - like your dad - think I'm sick in the head."
"Are you? You haven't done anything crazy while you've been with me."
"Yeah, well..." I said, "I did look at your willy, didn't I?"
"So? I looked at yours. And you can look at mine whenever you want, I don't mind."
And with that he pulled down the front of his shorts, waving his little
worm at me. I gasped and went light-headed with the sudden rush of
blood to my loins. He giggled at my shocked expression, and pulled his
pants up.
"Anyway," he went on, as if he hadn't just flashed me, "my dad isn't
always right. Sometimes I know the answers to my maths homework and he
doesn't."
And that, apparently, was that. Jack's issue was with his father's
attitude to me, rather than the fact that I was gay. We didn't mention
it again for some weeks.
----
"Zack, do you know what a blowjob is?"
It was a characteristically straightforward and blunt question from
Jack, and highlighted his naivety once more. Most people his age would
have felt uncomfortable admitting their ignorance regarding sex, but
with Jack I got the impression that nothing would have embarrassed him.
"It's... well, it's when someone sucks on your willy, when it gets hard."
"Why?"
"Because it feels good."
"But why would they suck it?"
"Because they want you to feel good. Or they just like sucking dicks."
"That's weird. Has anyone ever done it to you?"
"Yeah. It was... it was the best thing ever."
That was a lie, actually, but I couldn't quite tell him, nor admit to
myself, that the one act I craved to repeat more than any other was
getting fucked.
"How do you think I get a girl to do it to me?"
This was one of those crossroads, those moments when your life can turn
one way or the other. I knew that I wanted him in my mouth, that was a
certainty I didn't need to question. The issue was, would he want to
let me hoover his little spike. The decision, it turned out, was easier
than I thought.
"I'll suck you if you want," I said, my libido taking the choice away
from me. Immediately his face darkened, and I realised I'd made a huge
mistake.
"Eurgh, no! That's gay, isn't it? I don't want some boy sucking on my dick!"
My heart dropped like a stone into the pit of my stomach. How could I
have been so stupid? I should've just controlled my burgeoning desire
for Jack and just admitted that I'd never actually made anyone want to
suck me, as such; James had always desperately wanted to suck me off.
Jack made his excuses and went home shortly after that. It was a relief
when he did so, to be honest, because the tension between us was
palpable. As I wandered home through the gathering darkness, I wondered
if I would ever get to play with him again.
---
Isn't it marvellous what short memories boys have? The very next day my
transgression appeared to have either been forgiven or forgotten, as
there we were playing together in the woods once more. I managed not to
say anything too disturbing, and Jack successfully avoided raising any
topics of a sexual nature, and for that day, and a few weeks after, our
world was a little more regular, a little less charged. Things returned
to normal for a fourteen year old boy and his eleven year old friend.
---
The porno changed a lot. Finding those few scraps of damp paper,
separating them, carefully drying them like some engineering puzzle, it
occupied us with a fervour which heretofore we had hardly experienced.
It was a hardcore, too, a proper rarity in those days. It's hard to
imagine now, in the world of the internet where every conceivable kind
of pornography is available at the click of a button, the level of
excitement engendered by finding such a thing. It was almost a complete
magazine, dumped by someone in the hedges and found by us. I still
remember to this day the damp smell of the pages, and feel the tingling
of anticipation in my groin at that musty fragrance.
The porno had something for us both - for Jack, it had women with their
filthy cunts spread wide open, hairy, gaping. And for me, the hunky men
with their rampant poles, huge members of such enormity that it made my
arse twitch, spouting thick geysers of semen, of which I was truly
jealous. And on one page, the young stud who became the focus of my
masturbatory fantasies for days or even weeks. A northern European
magazine from the seventies, it had a section which I would imagine was
called 'Rising Stars', had I been able to read the language in which it
was written. And there, in glorious technicolour, was the most gorgeous
boy I had ever seen - my age, blond haired, with a five inch prick
which made mine look a little insignificant (though his was barely
thicker) and a fine patch of pubes which sparked jealousy and arousal
in equal measure. I didn't care for the older woman he was fucking, but
she didn't matter, as long as I could have that cock.
Some pages we argued over dividing between us, but those pages were
mine. Jack didn't even comment, just passed them to me with a slight
grin curling the corner of his lips, as if to say 'there you go, you
dirty poof!', but in a friendly way (if that were possible).
I lay in bed at night fascinated by the images portrayed on those
scraps of paper. How could someone so young be so lucky? I didn't envy
him bedding the woman, but to be in porn at all, to have all the sex
you wanted? That was truly something to desire. I kept returning to one
image above all - a close-up of his rigid shaft, the woman's tongue
licking at the exposed head, her hand around it possessively, her
little finger sticking straight out and buried in the immature bush of
hair at its base. I came and came, virtual torrents for me at that age,
while I imagined being that lucky, lucky bitch.
---
Perhaps surprisingly, the images in that magazine seemed to have gone
some way to thawing Jack's attitude, too, because it was shortly after
its discovery, and distribution between us, that for the first time we
shared a sexual experience.
"You play with yours when you look at the pictures, don't you?" he asked out of the blue.
I hesitated, not wanting to risk ruining things again by being 'too
gay' at him. But he had raised it, and just admitting the truth without
going into too much detail surely couldn't be harmful.
"Er, yeah. Sometimes."
Actually, all the fucking time, but I wasn't going to admit quite how frequently. He breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh, thank God. I thought it was just me."
I looked at him, slightly surprised. I wasn't that worldly wise, but
one thing I did know was that any boy who told you he didn't have a
wank every now and again was lying.
"All boys do it, Jack," I said, in a tone which I realised far too late was thoroughly patronizing.
"Oh yeah, I mean, I knew that. Of course."
He was blushing, making him look even cuter than ever. I had a brief
flash of an image of him standing there in one of the poses of the boy
from the magazine - hand on hips, which were thrust forward, with his
boyish spike presented to the world. I had a vague idea of what his
erection looked like, from having spied on him wanking, but up close
was another matter altogether, and even the daydream made my heart beat
faster.
"How do you... um.. how do you do it?" he asked, eyes downcast.
"Like this," I said, pressing my thumb to my middle and forefingers.
"Oh good!" he said, with a nervous giggle. "At least I'm doing it right. Do you get the feeling?"
"An orgasm?"
"Is that what it's called?"
"Yeah. And I get it every time. What would be the point if you didn't get the feeling?"
He giggled again, and said, "I suppose so."
"How often do you do it?" I asked.
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"About one every two days. Is that too much?"
I don't know why he thought I would have the answer to that, but based
on my own frequency I was forced to laugh, which angered him.
"What?!" he snapped.
"Don't worry," I replied, "you're not doing it too much. I do it way more."
"What, like once a day?"
"Um... I think my record was nine times."
His eyes flew wide at that.
"Nine times?! How?"
"Dunno. S'pose I was just feeling really bonky."
"Didn't it get sore?"
"Haha, yeah, after about the fifth time. It started really hurting to have my orgasm, and there was no spunk left to come out."
"Spunk?"
"Yeah, you know, the white stuff which comes out of the end when you have an orgasm. Like in the magazine."
"Oh, is that what that is? I was wondering..."
He fell silent for a moment, suddenly looking very unsure of himself. I went out on a limb, suspecting that I knew the issue.
"But you probably won't get that until you're like twelve or thirteen,"
I reassured him. It worked - he looked up at me, his face brightening,
and said,
"Oh, OK!"
For a few minutes we carried on with the game we'd been playing before
the interruption, but it was clear that he was distracted, occasionally
grabbing at his crotch.
"You need to do it now, don't you?" I asked, teasing him.
"No!" he responded, but I could tell it was a lie.
"Go ahead if you want to, I don't mind."
"You just want to watch me do it!" he retorted, and he was right. I was encouraging him to do it so I could watch.
"Yeah, well, you're the one who's got an erection."
My response was weak, largely because it was quite apparent from the
front of my jeans that I, too, was struggling with the same issue.
"Fine, I'll do it!" he almost shouted, as if he wanted to but wouldn't admit it. "But you have to do it too."
That, as it happened, was not going to be as much of a problem for me as he'd hoped.
So, as we agreed, on three we both pushed our jeans and pants to the
floor, right there in the middle of the woods, standing two feet apart
with our stiffies out in the open. It felt amazing to be there, with my
fingers and thumb on my dick, with Jack doing the same to his narrow,
three inch spike opposite. We made no pretence, he staring at my dick
just as avidly as I was watching him work at his, and not used to
delayed gratification we pounded away.
It was all too short, looking back. We should've taken our time,
relaxed a little, but barely two minutes after we started Jack, who had
already been horny for quite a while I guessed, started panting and
doubling over. He put out a hand to lean on a tree trunk for support,
and was suddenly there, drawing breath through clenched teeth then
expelling it in one huge puff. He crushed his erection with his fingers
as he came, squeezing the head hard and shaking all over. His head was
down, hands on his knees, and so he didn't see my explosion, triggered
by the sight in front of me. I came hard, firing a shower of watery
semen to land between us, gasping at an intensity of feeling I'd not
experienced since I, too, had been dry.
After that, there really was no point in being shy about it. I wanked
once or twice at night at the memory of our daytime adventures, but
that had nothing on the fact that without hesitation we would wank off
together in the woods whenever we were there. Sometimes Jack used to
tell dirty stories to get himself in the mood, but more often than not
there would be no need - we were horny boys, always in the mood. I grew
used to the sight of his ramrod straight, hairless three inches, and in
every fantasy he overtook the boy from the magazine. Oh God, how I
wanted that morsel of rigid flesh in my hand, my mouth... my arse.
---
We didn't often discuss what we did during those sessions; they were
more like a break between activities, a chance to relieve tension and
then get on with more important things. It was usually he who initiated
things, and it was always the same question:
"Do you need to do it yet?"
Always the same answer, too: of course I did! And if I didn't before he
asked, the prospect of seeing his willy again, no matter how often I'd
seen it before, would always get me interested.
One day, though, after our session, as we lay back on a grass bank to
catch our breath, pants still around our ankles, willies deflating, the
patch of grass to my left glistening with my semen, he asked me
something really rather revolutionary.
"Do you remember when you said you'd suck my willy for me? Well, would you still do it?"
I hesitated for a moment, but it was unlike Jack to try to trap me. no, if he was asking, it was for genuine reasons.
"Yeah, sure," I said, trying to act all nonchalant, "if you want me to."
"Do I have to do you?"
"Not if you don't want. But can I wank off when I'm sucking you?"
"Yeah, OK."
And that was that. He lay with his head on his arms whilst his willy
inflated of its own accord, going from a curled up little snail to a
proud monument to boyhood in a matter of moments. I rolled over toward
him and scooted down the bank a little, and came face to face with the
most wonderful thing I'd ever laid my eyes upon.
He was hard as nails, his anaemic little spike quivering with his
heartbeat, the protruding foreskin which hung over the end vibrating
with each pulse. It pointed up at forty five degrees, its very
stiffness preventing it falling onto his tummy. I marvelled at its
almost luminescent whiteness, and the minute tracery of thin blue veins
which criss-crossed its underside, and the way the head was clearly
outlined beneath the skin. I'd never before been so attracted to a
penis, and that was saying something. It was fatter than I realised,
too, and my mouth began to water in anticipation of nestling it on my
tongue and wrapping my lips around its perfectly smooth, hairless base.
I wasted no time, leaning forward and, for the first time in months,
feeling the soft, warm skin of a penis in my mouth. It was harder than
James' ever managed to be, even at the point of eruption, but the skin
was softer than I could possibly have imagined. It slid so easily over
the hardness beneath, and as I rolled it back off the his head with my
lips I tasted something altogether new. It was unadulterated boy,
fresher than James, a cleaner taste, slightly salty from the thinnest
smear of seminal fluid which leaked out of him as he came. A hint of
something metallic to the flavour, too.
I turned on the suction, and allowed my tongue to swirl around the
head, and before long he was curling up beneath me, hands on the back
of my head, stomach tensed until the muscles bulged, knees coming up to
press his thighs against the side of my head. He gasped and shuddered
as he came, and the little finger in my mouth kicked and bucked
uselessly.
Beneath me on the grass my untouched boyhood spewed out another meagre load.
---
Blowjobs became part of the routine, just as wanking had. They didn't
happen every time, but if Jack was horny enough (and he was growing
more so every day, a sure sign of impending puberty) he would shyly ask,
"Would you..."
The sentence was never finished, nor the question answered. I merely
scooted down and took him into my mouth, grateful for the opportunity
to have access to that wonderful, smooth spike of perfect boy.
My fourteenth birthday should have passed without note, just as my
thirteenth had. My aunt, not quite willing to give up so easily on me,
at least bought me a card and some fishing gear; after all, I was still
spending the odd Saturday with the taciturn Yvgeny - now my aunt's
fiancée and therefore soon to become my stepfather - and had grown to
really love angling. He himself even managed to crack a smile, and told
me with a wink and a grin that I was a man now, at least by the
reckoning of the old ways, and ought to mark such an occasion properly.
To my credit, I didn't throw the vodka straight back up again.
Jack's gift to me was a surprise in more ways than one. For a start, he
shouldn't have known it was my birthday, but, sneaky bugger that he
was, he'd spotted the card my aunt had bought me through the kitchen
window and had put two and two together. The other element of the
surprise was in the nature of the present.
We lay wanking, as we often did, on the pile of old blankets in our
little hideaway in the woods. He'd not indicated that I should suck him
off, but suddenly he rolled up and leaned on his elbow, looking at me.
I stopped what I was doing, surprised that he had deviated from the
routine.
"It's your birthday today, isn't it?"
I shrugged, not really wanting to commit to the answer, but not that bothered about denying it either.
"Happy birthday!" he said with a bright smile, and confidently reached
across the gap between us, pushing my hand away from my softening dick
and replacing it with his own. I gasped and closed my eyes, head
sinking back onto the ground and back arching at the sheer ecstasy of
the touch. I thought I had reached nirvana, that heaven had come to
claim me. Nothing could have felt better than the gentle up-and-down
motion of his hand on my dick.
Nothing, perhaps, except for what happened next. As I lay there,
gasping with pleasure, writhing from side to side, I felt a hot wetness
engulf the head of my dick. A soft, wriggling worm teased the opening
of my foreskin, and without having to open my eyes I knew what had just
happened. But open my eyes I did, to the sight of the side of Jack's
head, and, below that, my willy disappearing into his mouth.
It was all too much for me. I came, and came hard, pumping and pumping
into his mouth. He took it all in, then turned away to spit it out onto
the ground. When he turned back to me he was grinning.
"Actually," he said, ignoring the mingled expressions of shock and
adoration on my face, "that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would
be. Might even do that again, if you ask nicely."
---
His mum stood on our doorstep in the darkness of a November evening.
She looked pale in the light spilling out of the house, and her eyes
were rimmed red; she'd been crying.
"Can I come in?"
"Of course!" I said, my fear at finding her there evaporating as I
realised she was no threat to me. Her manner was of someone in
desperate need. I moved to the side and she stepped past me with a
whispered 'thanks'. I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where
she stood holding herself, as if freezing despite the warmth of the
room. I waited for her to speak, not quite sure what I should be saying
or doing. She took her time, but eventually, following a huge sigh,
looked up at me with eyes full of fear and spoke.
"Jack's dad had left us," she said bluntly. "He announced it this
afternoon. Jack ran off straight after and I haven't been able to find
him since. I know you boys have been playing together even though we
didn't want you to. Could you find him for me? Please?"
Though part of me wanted to say no, given how they'd treated me, a much
larger part wanted to agree, for two reasons: Jack's mum was distraught
and had come to me even though it must have hurt to do so, and
somewhere out there on this freezing night was the boy who had worked
his way into my heart.
"Of course. I know few places to look."
"Thanks, Zack. Take this," she said, handing me his favourite blue and green coat. "He only had a jumper on, he'll be freezing."
I took it, grabbed my own coat and the torch from the cupboard under the stairs, and headed for the woods.
---
It didn't take too long for me to find him. We'd come across an old,
abandoned hut in the woods some weeks before, and made it our own with
a handful of old blankets and other bits and pieces. He was sitting in
the middle of the floor when I arrived, hugging his knees. He looked up
into the torchlight and I could see he'd been crying.
"I could hear you coming a mile off," he said. "You'd make a rubbish spy."
He tried to laugh at his own joke, but his heart wasn't in it. I went
and sat down next to him, and put his coat around him and my arm around
his shoulders. My heart broke to see him like this. I held him to me
and we sat in the dark, not saying anything for ages.
"Is this what happened to your parents?" he asked, at last. I'd never
even explained my past to him; it had never seemed appropriate.
"No, they died a few years ago."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I hardly knew them. They abandoned me in a boarding school so they could keep on having a big party all the time."
"That's rubbish."
"Yep. But then they died and I came to live with my aunt."
"What's going to happen to me?" he asked. There was genuine fear in his voice.
"Don't know, mate. I suppose you'll live with your mum or something.
Your dad will probably send money or something. Your mum's dead worried
about you, you know."
"Yeah, I knew she would be."
"You should go home."
"Yeah. I know. Thanks."
We rose, and he threw his arm around me, hugging me tightly to him for
a moment. It was nothing more than childish affection, brotherly love,
but to me it meant the world.
---
I stood at the end of his drive as he walked up and opened the front
door. Warm, soft light spilled out into the night, casting him in
silhouette, a vast shadow which reached half the length of his lawn.
His mum rushed up to him and grabbed him into a hug, then looked past
him to where I stood, nervously. She nodded ever so slightly, as if
thanking me but unable to say it, then turned with him and went inside.
He hadn't even looked back.
---
Over the weeks which followed, Jack went through the mill emotionally.
He became erratic, and would shout at me for no reason at all, storming
off and refusing to speak to me for days, then returning to our normal
routine as if nothing had been said. My aunt pleaded with me to
understand, to help him where I could, but it became increasingly
difficult, and although I felt a great deal of affection for him, I was
still basically a selfish teenager. I didn't want someone who was
dependent on me, I wanted a playmate, both platonic and erotic.
I missed our wanking off sessions. I missed the feel of his dick in my
mouth when he was horny enough to let me suck him off, and the soft
heat of his own mouth on those rare occasions he was hornier still and
would agree to suck me. I missed the cute way his eyes would drift shut
and his whole body would stiffen and shudder as his orgasm overtook
him. I missed the little high pitched noises which came from the back
of his throat at the same time, like a little puppy whimpering in
distress, though his only cause to whimper was the strength of feelings
in his young body.
But more than just the physical side of our friendship, I missed the
companionship he gave me. He was just about the only friend I had in
the whole world at that point, partly due to my self-imposed exile, and
partly due to my reputation. He alone amongst my peers didn't seem to
mind that I was gay.
I needed him back, and soon...
To Be Continued...